The goal of the thesis is to articulate and defend a political liberal conception of justice that provides plausible and determinate principles for the formulation and regulation of the institutions associated with children and their upbringing. It thereby offers a reply to those that are sceptical of the prospects for a compelling political liberal conception of justice that can be applied to children’s upbringings. I begin by expounding an understanding of the political liberal approach that offers an immediate reply to a set of those objections that rest on mistaken understandings of the constraints political liberal approaches put on the derivation of principles of justice for children. The mistake is the failure to recognise that political liberalism is based on a substantive ideal of the citizen and of society, an ideal that is the basis for demanding certain outcomes and procedures of children’s upbringings, regardless of what parents or certain cultural or religious groups think about those demands. I then detail a political liberal conception of justice based on this substantive ideal: Rawls’s Justice as Fairness. I articulate and defend some interpretative and substantive differences from standard understandings of the general conception. I defend a political conception of autonomy as self-authorization utilizing recent work on conceptions of relational autonomy. I also argue that the principle of fair equality of opportunity ought to be jettisoned from the two principles of Justice as Fairness and replaced with a principle that secures certain relational conditions supportive of political autonomy as I expound it. I then turn to applying that conception to the specific issues raised by children’s upbringings. I show that the conception’s application to children’s upbringings elicits plausible, coherent, and determinate conclusions with respect to the key issues raised by the upbringing of children. I show that the conception elicits plausible and coherent understandings of the interests that ought to be furthered on children’s behalf, of how children’s development over time alters how they ought to be treated, and what makes a child a child and then an adult. I address three key issues to elucidate the conception: the need for children to be brought up to be autonomous, the need for children to have the opportunity to experience the intrinsic goods of childhood, and the need for children to have an equal and socially inclusive education. I show that my conception elicits plausible and coherent outcomes with respect to all three issues, and demonstrate this through comparisons to other liberal conceptions of upbringing. I then offer an account of the distribution of child-rearing rights and obligations. I reject the popular set of conceptions of child-rearing obligations that connect responsibility for the child’s existence with responsibility for the costs of upbringings. I deny these conceptions offer a plausible account of responsibility and its relationship to the distribution of child-rearing obligations. I offer an alternative account based on the notion that the distribution of child-rearing rights and obligations ought to be arranged to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged, where this is consistent with the prior principles of Justice as Fairness. This elicits institutional schemes that plausibly and coherently fulfil the demands of children’s upbringings and satisfies the reasonable claims of adults that have interests in acquiring (and not acquiring) child-rearing rights and obligations.

No description available.

Over the course of (roughly) the past three decades, much of contemporary liberal political theory has followed John Rawls and taken a ‘political’ turn. Liberalism, it is now generally supposed, is a ‘political’ doctrine, not a philosophy of life. The most influential account of such a liberalism is public reason liberalism. According to public reason liberals, political rules and decisions have to be justified by appeal to ideas or arguments that those subject to them (at some level of idealisation) endorse or accept. Public reason is the standard by which moral or political rules can be assessed. In this thesis I do two things. First, I offer a critique of public reason liberalism. I argue that it fails to live up to the ideal of liberal reason, that it fails to take diversity seriously, and that it is based on a problematic account of political institutions. Second, I articulate a genuinely ‘political’ alternative, which I call a liberalism without liberals. I develop this alternative on the basis of a re-interpretation of David Hume’s critique of the social contract and of his account of pluralism, the moral order and social criticism. I argue that Hume understands political society as the product of shared interests and not (as social contract theorists suppose) as an embodiment of a common will. I also argue that Hume offers a compelling, nonsectarian account of the standards for moral and political evaluation and that he is capable of accommodating foundational pluralism. In sum, a Hume-inspired liberalism without liberals is a combination of (a) a specific idea concerning the nature of political society, (b) an attempt to take pluralism more seriously than has so far been countenanced by liberals, (c) a specific view concerning the distribution of authority in moral deliberation and the nature of social criticism, and (d) scepticism about political institutions.

This paper-based thesis consists of five interlinked chapters/articles that explore dimensions of both the style of governance and the state-building endeavour in the West Bank in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, primarily between 2007 and 2013. This governance and state-building project came to be known as the Fayyadist paradigm, or Fayyadism, in reference to the former Palestinian Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad. The thesis examines the transformations that occurred under Fayyadism in the two spheres of security and economy, and elucidates their consequences on the people’s security and well-being, as well as the broader dynamics of resistance against the Israeli military occupation and settlercolonialism. Therefore, the primary contribution of this thesis is empirical and ethnographic in nature. This thesis examines the transformations in the security sphere at three levels. First, to historicise Fayyadism, the thesis contextually analyses the evolution of Palestinian security forces and reforms over the past two decades. Second, the thesis unpacks and critically assesses perceptions about the Fayyadist paradigm by drawing on the findings of an ethnographic fieldwork investigation conducted at two sites in the occupied West Bank, namely Balata and Jenin refugee camps, as well as the associated relevant literatures. Third, this thesis investigates in-depth the security campaigns to induce “law and order” as a defining feature of the Fayyadist paradigm, and through a bottom-up ethnographic approach, analyses the consequences of Fayyadist security campaigns on the people’s security in Balata and Jenin refugee camps and on the broader dynamics of resistance against Israel. This thesis examines and analyses the transformations in the economic sphere at two levels. It addresses the interaction between Fayyadism and the aid industry through an aid-dependency lens to examine whether the transformations that occurred under the Fayyadist paradigm impacted donors’ operations and the overall framework of the aid industry. It also utilises theories of contentious politics to analyse the implications of the Fayyadist paradigm’s neoliberal economic model and the authoritarian transformations it induced, and also to expand the conceptual underpinnings of the contentious politics theories through proposing the notions of contentious economics and resistance economy.

As a critical advocate of the philosophy of Enlightenment, Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) reconsidered the development of the empiricist and naturalistic philosophies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and held that their development was connected in intricate ways to various quite specific issues arising in nineteenth-century British society. In order to respond to these issues, he established a comprehensive framework of philosophical thought as the foundation for his practical activities. In this framework, the core argument focuses on the relationship between consciousness and action. However, though Green’s philosophy has been widely investigated, no study has, as yet, focused exclusively on Green’s practical philosophy, and in particular his idea of the ethical citizen. This thesis undertakes this task and argues firstly that viewing the relationship between consciousness and action as the nexus of the human condition, Green’s practical philosophy is a coherent and consistent philosophical system which includes metaphysics; moral and ethical theory; and social and political theory. I then go on to argue that, by virtue of his philosophical system, Green founded political activity on the basis of metaphysical and moral ideas, on the one side, but on the other side, provided politics with a deep raison d’être; that is, to maintain and to provide the equality of opportunity for individuals by means of state power. Finally, I argue that while Green accordingly established a justification for state action, the nature of such state action relates closely to the self-government of individual citizens. Hence, Green’s practical philosophy provides an ethical theory of politics which underpins an important legacy for contemporary liberal political philosophy.

Contemporary political liberalism defends the view that any legitimate law ought to be justified to those reasonable citizens subject to it. A standard way in which to accomplish this task is to construct a set of public reasons, comprised of constitutional essentials and public democratic values, which are then used to justify all political mandates. The dissertation begins with a criticism of this process of justification for outcomes of legitimate procedures of public decision-making. It argues that given how reasons contribute to judgment formation, it is highly optimistic to assume that reasonable consent on procedures of collective decision-making correspond to the justifiability of procedural outcomes. Instead, I argue for an ideal of legitimate decision-making which enables each citizen to assume a threshold level of personal responsibility for all political decisions made by the political collective. Integrating responsibility into a theory of liberal legitimacy requires a reformulation of the rules of public justification. I argue that citizens concerned with making responsible political decisions must be allowed to justify their political positions through both reasonable judgments as well as sympathetic judgments such as compassion for those who live with disability and mercy towards the criminally motivated. The notion of sympathy, as formulated by David Hume and expanded by Adam Smith, provides an account of how individuals’ ethical evaluations are affected by their ability to be in fellow-feeling with other people. A substantial portion of my doctoral thesis considers the situations in which a private judgment couched in sympathetic terms can meet political liberalism’s demands of publicity and reciprocity.

Although L.T. Hobhouse (1864-1929) has long been considered one of the leading political thinkers of the British new liberalism, the whole range of his thought has not been given as much attention as it deserves. Through a thorough analysis of Hobhouse’s academically written works, the thesis demonstrates that he made a considerable contribution to the political thought of the new liberalism through his clear and articulate vision of a liberal welfare society. This vision was built upon a strikingly consistent system of political, economic, sociological, and philosophical arguments. The thesis argues these claims from three perspectives. First, while sharing with other new liberals a focus on the cultivation of individual morality as the primary purpose of social reform, Hobhouse further associated the idea with a notably pluralist perspective, focusing on the activities of intermediate organizations as well as the state. Secondly, his ethics of harmony offered a distinctively new liberal criterion on the development of morality and wealth distribution, whilst showing a notable intellectual affinity with T.H. Green’s theory of rights. In fact, despite his incessant critique of philosophical idealism, Hobhouse’s views were what could properly be called those of an ‘idealist liberal’ in the realms of ethics and political philosophy. Finally, on the basis of the integration of his new liberal ethics, idealist-inclined realist metaphysics and neo-Spencerian evolutionary sociology, Hobhouse labelled the core principle of a liberal welfare society ‘citizenship’ in his sociology, identifying its partial realization in modern society. Welfare society was envisioned as a global community premised on the mutual recognition of moral rights and duties. This vision was later in part succeeded by T.H. Marshall’s sociological theory of citizenship, but its scope and philosophical depth was a specific product of Hobhouse’s systematic thought. In summary the thesis is an attempt to show the originality and comprehensiveness of Hobhouse's welfare thought and thus to restore his reputation as a serious thinker.

This thesis aims to provide a new perspective on the British Liberal Party during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries via an analysis of pamphlet literature produced in support of the party. The period under investigation saw the fortunes of the Liberal Party move from being the principal rival of the Conservative Party to one of three competing for power, with the Labour Party emerging as a party capable of forming a government. The thesis aims to contribute to scholarly debate on the subject by showing that there was indeed a ‘decline of Liberalism’ and ‘rise of Labour’, but that these themes can be best understood in terms of the appeals both parties made to the electorate. It will show that when analysed through the literature they or their supporters produced to win over voters, the Liberal Party can be seen to have failed to adapt to a shifting electorate, and that they did not react to developing critiques of Liberalism from the Labour Party and its constituent bodies in sufficient time to prevent Labour establishing itself as a credible party of government, thus removing one of the Liberal Party’s main advantages over Labour. The thesis will use a close analysis of the text contained within a sample of Liberal Party pamphlet literature to show that the party had particular problems when addressing itself to working-class voters, who became an increasingly important section of the electorate following franchise extensions in 1867, 1884 and 1918. It will show that the Liberal Party constructed their appeals to working-class voters using a constructed figure, which will be termed the ‘Liberal Working Man’, who was possessed of particular characteristics which made him suitable to hold the vote. The ‘Liberal Working Man’ was both conceived within models of political behaviour deriving from ‘whiggish’ forms of political history and also appealed to by using narratives of political history which stressed the need for him to support the Liberal Party. The thesis will show that the Liberals did nor realise until too late that their understanding of the working-class electorate was flawed and had contributed to the emergence of the Labour critique of their party, by which time the First World War had created a series of practical problems which hampered the party’s attempts to maintain working-class support. The Liberal Party will be shown to have been put into a position whereby its pamphlet appeals could no longer rely on the old assumptions with regards working-class electoral behaviour, and proved incapable of providing an adequate replacement for the concept in their attempts to garner support through electoral literature.

This PhD thesis asks how ‘neo-liberal’ was the Thatcher government? Existing accounts tend to characterise neo-liberalism as a homogeneous, and often ill-defined, group of thinkers that exerted a broad influence over the Thatcher government. This thesis - through a combination of archival research, interviews and examination of ideological texts - defines the dominant strains of neo-liberalism more clearly and explores their relationship with Thatcherism. In particular, the schools of liberal economic thought founded in Vienna and Chicago are examined and juxtaposed with the initial neo-liberals originating from Freiburg in 1930s and 1940s Germany. Economic policy and deregulation were the areas that most clearly linked neo-liberal thinking with Thatcherism, but this thesis looks at a broad cross section of the wider programme of the Thatcher government. This includes other domestic policies such as education and housing, as well as the Thatcher government’s success in reducing or altering the pressures exerted by vested interests such as the trade unions and monopolies. Lastly, while less associated with neo-liberal theory, foreign policy, in the area of overseas aid, is examined to show how ideas filtered into the international arena during the 1980s. Although clearly a political project, the policies of Thatcherism, in so far as they were ideological, resonate most with the more expedient, or practical, Friedmanite strain of neo-liberalism. This encapsulated a willingness to utilize the state, often in contradictory ways, to pursue more marketorientated policies. As such, it sat somewhere between the more rules-based ordoliberalism and the often utopian Austrian School.

This thesis examines how Friedrich Hayek’s concern with free market action led him to adopt a neo-roman concept of liberty and it traces how this development informed his view of the relationship between government, democracy and the economy. For Hayek, liberalism that made freedom in economic life its core concern was the ‘true’ liberalism, and he distinguished this from a ‘false’ liberalism that advocated government action as a means of enabling ‘self-development’. Influenced by Carl Schmitt, Hayek viewed the democratic process as encouraging false liberalism. Recognising the contested nature of liberalism, over the course of the 1940s and ‘50s he set out to decontest it: to win acceptance of his definition of the tradition. He sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of his true liberalism with reference to intellectual history and the work of Whig authors. It was in their work that Hayek came into contact with the neo-roman concept of liberty. Theirs however was a partial interpretation of Roman liberty. The generally privileged status of the Whig authors, combined with a genuine fear of government, resulted in a focus on the danger of public power, or imperium, to the exclusion of private power, or dominium. This complemented Hayek’s own opposition to government economic activity. This thesis contends that arriving at a concept of liberty was the pivotal point in Hayek’s intellectual career. From then on his work ceased to be defensive. Instead, despondent at the growing appeal of social justice in the 1960s and alarmed at union influence and inflation in the ‘70s, he actively promoted an alternative free market vision. This culminated in his intellectual emergency equipment: the ‘denationalisation of money’ and ‘a model constitution’. Informed by his partial version of the neo-roman concept, he advocated a weak state and a curtailment of democratic power. Despite his strong focus on imperium there are points in Hayek’s thought at which he recognises that private power can also pose a threat to free market action. This thesis concludes with the suggestion that integrating a more comprehensive version of the neo-roman concept of liberty into Hayek’s thought results in a very different vision of the appropriate relationship between government, democracy and the economy to the one he developed.