The liberal and republican traditions of political thought are commonly treated as divergent political-philosophical doctrines which existed in a state irreconcilable opposition in late eighteenth-century France and America. The present study challenges this notion through examining the concept of political neutrality as discussed and expounded in the political and constitutional writings of James Madison and Benjamin Constant. In seeking to account for not only why, but also how, both thinkers endeavoured to construct political systems geared toward securing the production of neutral laws, this thesis explores and highlights the complex interdependent relationship between the liberal and republican philosophical traditions in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century political theory. It is argued that in their desire to construct political-constitutional systems tailored toward guaranteeing the materialisation of neutral laws, Madison and Constant incorporated republican, or ‘Real Whig’, concepts into their respective constitutional strategies. Their shared objective, it is shown, was to form limited and neutral states through exploiting the diversity of public opinion in such a way that would render popular sovereignty self-neutralising. More specifically, this thesis suggests that both Madison and Constant placed considerable emphasis on de-legitimising particular justifications for legislative action, and that their respective efforts in this area were motivated by a desire to restrict the legislature to the promotion of objective, and impartially-conceived, accounts of the public good. Thus through examining Madison’s and Constant’s attempts to form neutral states, this thesis challenges the traditional account of the development of modern liberalism through pointing to the existence of an autonomous liberal-republican philosophy in post-revolutionary French and American political thought. It is argued that this hybrid political philosophy – which underpinned the constitutionalisms advanced by both Madison and Constant – had as its principal objective the reconciliation of the practice of popular governance with the restoration and maintenance negative individual liberty. Both thinkers, in other words, exploited republican concepts and institutions in order to realise the distinctly liberal end of forming limited and neutral states.

This thesis rejects the position, dominant in political philosophy since Plato that the authority of states may be explained by means of a moral theory of legitimacy. It denies that it is possible even in principle to determine a principle that can endow a state with the moral entitlement to rule and create for its citizens a moral obligation of obedience which thereby authorises it to coerce them. The thesis argues that a Lockean understanding of the state leads more naturally to the position that the state is properly understood as a necessary evil granted qualified justification to coerce in order to protect people from each other. It locates this ambiguity in the moral psychology of the individuals from which a Lockean state must derive its powers and through whom it acts. It further claims that, Government officials being no different in character than the individuals over whom they rule, further coercion may be justified to raise funds by taxation to set up political institutions such as a separation of powers, and to ensure that citizens may equip themselves with the skills needed to avoid being financially dependent on the state. This justification is nonetheless provisional, and the responsibility to weigh the necessity of public coercion against the evil that it involves falls upon individual voters as much as parliamentarians and prime ministers.

This thesis is an organisational ethnography that seeks to make an original contribution to anthropological knowledge through an iterative interrogation of neoliberalism and personhood.Endeavour (a pseudonym) is a gap year organisation based in the UK that runs trips abroad to Central America, India and Borneo for young people. A gap year is any period of between three months to two years outside formal education or employment, but often refers to a year-off preceding university. Endeavour is a registered charity committed to what it describes as “personal development”. It attempts this by organising young people into small groups to participate in adventurous challenges and work on charitable projects in community development and environmental conservation.Using multi-sited ethnography, the thesis moves from the marketing, fundraising and recruitment in Endeavour’s Head Office to the implementation and management of expeditions in Central America. The thesis explores the daily workings, processes and practices of Endeavour and how these are influenced by and connected to the current political-economic climate in the UK as it works to produce a particular type of gap year experience and through this a particular kind of person.In exploring the process by which neoliberal persons are shaped at a gap year organisation, the thesis considers different aspects of the organisation and how it interacts with and is shaped by its context. It argues that the demands of neoliberalism have shaped the organisational structure of Endeavour and its employees. The trips also prepare young people to cope with the conditions in a neoliberal labour market. The thesis investigates Endeavour’s relationship to the state and argues non-governmental bodies are increasingly taking on state-like roles. Equally, as Endeavour has had to professionalise and become “business-like” to compete in the gap year market, it must patrol its charitable ethos to ensure the organisation carries the moral weight that attracts its patrons. The thesis also considers the techniques used during the trips abroad to discipline and organise young people as well as how these encourage friendships and social harmony in line with Endeavour’s charitable goals. It explores the personal development techniques that form the basis of Endeavour’s model of personhood and how these are used to develop individuals who are good at making transitory social relations and can thrive in neoliberal circumstances.

The emergence between 1965 and 1973 of a crisis of over-accumulation and over-capacity, rooted in international manufacturing yet affecting the overall private business economies of the advanced capitalist countries, inaugurated a developmental context whose profound contradictions were brought home by the Great Recession of 2008-9 and the continuing Long Depression. The intervening period has seen profound economic, political and social crisis in the advanced capitalist world and has simultaneously been treacherous for under-developed economies forced to navigate rocketing energy costs and international commodity price and currency exchange rate turbulence under the continual threat of debt-levered expropriation. The struggle to locate the causes – proximate and ultimate – of the present crisis is at the same time a battle to map the basic economic and political coordinates of the continuing long downturn. In this connection it is contended that efforts have been undermined by the epistemological underdevelopment conditioned by a crisis of knowledge-formation which has unfolded in parallel with the long downturn. The dominance of neoclassical economics (‘unworldly’ since the marginal revolution) on the right and the displacement of Marxism on a structurally weakened and autodidactic left in the context of the ascent of postmodernism as an intellectual and cultural dominant has opened a space between the material and discursive realities of global capitalist development. This work is an attempt to deploy the method developed by the classical Marxist tradition to approach the significance of the state and law in the historically-conditioned reproduction of capitalist social relations. It is contended in the first place that the dualism which obtains between national and global spheres in much theorisation of neoliberal ‘globalisation’ obscures the dialectical interrerelation of state and world market – the institutional and regulatory environment of international trade, money and finance being both the creation of states and the developing context which frames their – necessarily path-dependent and reflexive – projects of domestic economy making. As against popular notions of state decline, following Gowan the state-political content of the centring of private financial markets in the mediation of international monetary relations is recalled, while the embeddedness of the state in circuits of capital accumulation is emphasised (Tony Smith), the concept of ‘regime of accumulation’ being deployed to capture the nexus of monetary, fiscal and regulatory policy which articulates historically-conditioned development strategies. In this respect, we depart from the work of the Bolshevik jurist Pashukanis, who despite significantly advancing the materialist analysis of the juridical form, identified in his most significant work a largely derivative role for the state. It is argued that the methodological weakness represented by Pashukanis’ disproportionate emphasis on commodity exchange – his failure to proceed from the basis of the capitalist economy as a contradictory unity of production and circulation – prevents him from fully apprehending the role of the state in the production and reproduction of capitalist social relations. As the discussion unfolds, there is developed in conversation principally with Gramsci an understanding of the state as the specific material condensation of a relationship of forces among classes and class fractions. Upholding the notion of the ‘integral state’ as a differentiated unity of civil society and political society upon which terrains the capitalist class forms alliances with proximate classes as the prerequisite for and correlate of its domination of labour, the developmental context represented by neoliberalism is conceived in terms of the transition of interest-bearing capital from leading to dominant fraction of the capitalist class in parallel with its tendential contradictory disaggregation from productive capital. Such a process has necessitated a transformation in the character of bourgeois political supremacy involving a dismantling of the civil rights and social protections accumulated during the period bookended by Americanism and the welfare state and increasing dependence upon an expanded machinery of coercion. Proceeding from this basis, it is considered how in specific developmental contexts the state by way of the legal form maps the social totality, achieving distinctive couplings (and de-couplings) of wealth production and social reproduction. There is asserted the second-order integration of public and private spheres in terms of the fundamental unity of capitalist reproduction, the first-order public/private metabolism being evaluated in view of the facilitation and rationalisation of social reproduction in the context of a productive economy structured around dissociated private producers. The legal form is further interrogated in view of its role in structuring the productive antagonism between capital and labour, a relation which on the basis of its form comes to expresses various contents – from consensual integration to casuistic assimilation – as domestic social relations are (in-)validated by the operation of the law of value at the level of the world market. In this connection, the unproductive theoretical polarisation obtaining between approaches which consider law to be epiphenomenal and those which pursue its relative autonomy is enriched by a historicised conception in terms of which law, concretising specific relationships of forces within particular regimes of accumulation, appears as ‘sword’, as ‘shield’ and as ‘fetter’. This framework is particularly useful for evaluating the opportunities for the deployment of legal strategies by labour and groups oppressed under capitalism – a question in relation to which Pashukanis, following Lenin, demonstrated a remarkable political astuteness.

This thesis addresses the following question: do proponents and opponents in the linguistic disputes in Catalonia and Flanders prioritise individual or group-oriented rights? The dispute in Catalonia is about the use of languages in the Catalan education system, while the dispute in Flanders is about the linguistic regime in certain municipalities around Brussels. Crucially, both are made of competing normative-laden political arguments. Drawing on interviews and document analysis, the thesis situates the conflicting political arguments within the scholarship on the compatibility between liberalism and nationalism. The central argument of the thesis is that the Catalan and Flemish linguistic disputes occur within liberal nationalism. Proponents in Catalonia and Flanders argue in a form of liberal nationalism that is more nationalist than liberal, although the nationalist dimension is more explicit in Catalonia; opponents in Flanders combine liberal nationalism with classical liberalism; and opponents in Catalonia argue in a form of classical liberalism that relies on liberal nationalist elements. In short, the four positions in the two debates participate in different forms and to different degrees in liberal nationalism. The findings suggest that nationalism is an important factor in making sense of the paradox that the normative consensus on political liberalism does not translate into political consensus in these specific cases. It is hoped that the findings of this thesis will make two main contributions. The first is an explanatory contribution to improve the understanding of the Catalan and Flemish linguistic disputes: the disputes are not between liberals and nationalists, but between liberal nationalists. The second is a theory-building contribution to refine the theoretical debate about individual and group-specific rights: liberal nationalist scholars run the risk of being unable to account for the national attachments many people experience in ‘the real world’ if, in their efforts to build acceptable liberal theories, they circumscribe their defence of national membership to its instrumental role for individual autonomy. In addition, their conceptualisation of nations as bounded and homogeneous seems to be built upon flimsy empirical grounds.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and defend ‘The Constraint-Based View’, which is a particular conception of the nature of, and relationship between, ideal and non-ideal theories of justice. Traditionally, ideal theory is characterised by the assumption of ‘full compliance’, while non-ideal theory is characterised by the assumption of ‘partial compliance’. In other words, ideal theories assume that those for whom the theory is meant to apply will be entirely willing and able to comply with the theory’s requirements, while non-ideal theories do not. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, I describe and assess this original conception as well as several alternative accounts of ideal and non-ideal theory, in order to offer a broad survey of the existing literature, and to identify the various ways that these conceptions fail to capture fully the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory. In Chapter 2, I draw a distinction between two different approaches to theorising about justice. ‘Axiological’ or ‘A-Type’ approaches are characterised by the fact that they include almost no assumptions as inputs to the theory, and that they are not intended to provide action-guiding recommendations as part of the outputs of the theory. In contrast, ‘Practical’ or ‘P-Type’ approaches include additional assumptions as part of their inputs and are intended to form part of a process that ultimately produces action-guiding recommendations. In Chapter 3, I describe and defend my preferred conception of the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory – the ‘Constraint-Based View’ (CBV). According to the CBV, there is a spectrum of theoretical approaches that can be more or less ideal, depending on the extent to which they include ‘soft constraints’ as part of the inputs to the theory. Soft constraints are facts about the world that can be changed, in contrast to hard constraints, which are facts about the world that cannot. I argue that this way of thinking about the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory is more useful than the alternative conceptions considered in Chapter 1. In Chapter 4, I examine the roles that feasibility considerations should play in ideal and non-ideal theory, from the perspective of the CBV and in Chapter 5, I explain the implications of adopting the CBV for what I call ‘transitional theory’, which is concerned with the transition from the status quo towards a more ideal state of affairs. In Chapter 6, I offer an example of the CBV in action, by considering its implications for the debate over duties of justice towards future generations.

This practice-based research discusses critical responses to the structural pressures of 'independent' curating under neoliberalism. The study argues for politicising project-making in accordance with such values as equality, collective autonomy and interdependency. The argument contributes to current debates about the practical plausibility of politicising project-related modes of production in the expanded field of art. The thesis acknowledges that 'independent' curators are culturally and economically dependent on the same apparatus that they want to contest. My work approaches this basic contradiction as a practical and conceptual challenge that prompts a series of questions as to how to practice within the apparatus, whilst at the same time resisting the social pressures of the very same system. The methodology merges sociological analysis of the social conditions of 'independent' curating with the tacit knowledge of the forms of curatorial resistance elicited by the pressures discussed. Thus, I set aside the aesthetical contents of curatorial projects and focus on their social forms. Utilising Walter Benjamin s concepts from The Author as Producer (1934), I argue that to politicise project-making, an 'independent' curator is required to intervene in the social apparatuses of curatorial production. The thesis reveals a number of social pressures, which manifest themselves in 'independent' curatorial practice and analyses tactics that 'independent' curators develop in response to those pressures. I interpret the examples of curatorial practice, submitted to evidence my argument, both as symptoms of those social pressures and as sites of politicised, curatorial intervention. To analyse politicised curating, I introduce two central terms 'the apparatus of project-making' and 'radical opportunism'. These terms facilitate the analysis of the intrinsic contradictions and ethical complexities of politicised curating. I apply this conceptual framework to the different aspects of project-making, analysing temporal structures, modes of governance and competitive features of the apparatus, alongside politicised, curatorial responses to the pressures discussed. In order to discuss curatorial tactics that respond to the social pressures of project-making, I introduce new terms, such as 'free/slowness', 'neither a project nor an institution' and 'interdependent curating', discussed in the consecutive Chapters.

Cette thèse est inspirée d’un phénomène paradoxal dans l’histoire politique récente de la Russie, soit le soutien d’un grand nombre de figures célèbres de l’intelligentsia libérale, au début des années 1990, à la concentration des pouvoirs dans les mains d’une élite « éclairée », contribuant ainsi à l’épuisement de la démocratie qu’ils cherchaient à consolider. Sur la base d’une étude contextualiste de la pensée politique d’auteurs qui sont au cœur des débats de la perestroïka, cette recherche met en lumière la perspective morale de l’intelligentsia libérale soviétique. Elle montre aussi comment ces postulats et idéaux moraux sont mis à l’épreuve de l’émergence de la vie politique pluraliste à partir de 1989. L’une des principales conclusions de cette étude est de remettre en question une fréquente présomption de similarité entre la pensée politique des libéraux soviétiques et le libéralisme tel qu’il est communément défini en Occident. Le projet moral de la perestroïka porté par les libéraux soviétiques, en effet, ne vise pas à assurer l’indépendance individuelle par la neutralité de l’État : c’est un projet perfectionniste confié à un pouvoir étatique réformateur visant à l’épanouissement d’un bien moral substantiel par le démantèlement du système communiste. Cela ne signifie, pour autant, que la vision politique des libéraux soviétiques soit simplement « immature » ou « utopique », comme on leur reproche parfois. Leur réflexion sur le renouvellement moral nécessaire à la démocratisation s’inscrit au contraire dans une riche tradition de réflexion, dans la philosophie politique occidentale, sur les conditions morales et institutionnelles de la fondation de la liberté. / This dissertation is inspired by a paradoxical phenomenon in recent Russian political history: the support for the concentration of power in the hands of an “enlightened elite” by a large numbers of distinguished figures of the liberal intelligentsia, who thus favored the conditions of the demise of their own political project. Based on a contextual study of the political thought of authors who were at the heart of the debates at the time, this research sheds light on the specific moral perspective of the liberal intelligentsia. It also demonstrates how these moral assumptions and ideals were challenged in the crucible of pluralist politics, from 1989 on. One of the main conclusions of this study is to question a pervasive presumption of similarity between the ideas of Soviet liberals and the Western liberal canon. Indeed, the moral project of perestroika, as it was conceived by Soviet liberals, did not aim at the guarantee of individual independence and state neutrality about the definition of the good. It was rather a perfectionist project in which the reformers were expected to create the political and economical conditions of the thriving of a substantial good, by way of the dismantling of the administrative and ideological control of the communist system. This does not mean, however, that Soviet liberals were merely ‘immature’ or ‘utopian’ in their understanding of politics, as they are also accused of. We argue that it is more fruitful to situate their association of democratization with moral renewal in a long tradition of reflection, in Western political philosophy, on the institutional and moral conditions for the foundation of freedom.

The main purpose of this thesis is to critically analyse the convergence of political Islam and neoliberalism in Turkey. By doing so, the research aims to construct a Gramscian historical materialist account as opposed to the mainstream centre-periphery relations approach. The mainstream centre-periphery relations approach takes the state and civil society as antagonistic autonomous entities. This consideration brings us where the Turkish politics are perceived as a terrain of conflict between Islamists and secularists. The centre-periphery relations approach has four shortcomings. First, the state and society are considered separately. Second, the market and the state; and the economy and the politics are considered separately. Third, as considered separately, the theory takes civil society as automatically progressive. Fourth, the social relations of productions are neglected. This thesis argues that the Islamists versus secularists dichotomy is not sufficient enough to explain the complexity of contradictions in Turkish politics because of the given four shortcomings. Therefore, a more complex theory where the antagonism is considered within the class struggle is needed. Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, passive revolution and most importantly the integral state provides a new window in this respect. The Gramscian historical materialism offers a holistic understanding for the relationship between the state and society, the market and the state, and the economy and the political. As part of the hegemonic struggle, civil society can be on either side of the struggle therefore it is not considered as automatically progressive in Gramscian historical materialism. As a historical materialist approach, Gramscianism considers the social relations of production as the crucial element of the analysis. The pre-2002 periods (before the Justice and Development Party came into power) were already researched by Gramscian scholars. Therefore, the neoliberal restructuring in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party era is the focal period of this thesis. There will be a specific focus on the cases of urbanisation, education, and the mass media. The conceptual framework of state-society relations is the analytical basis of this study. Overall, this thesis offers an alternative reading of the rise of political Islam in Turkey.

This thesis studies how Liberal Democrat members and supporters use Internet tools to mobilise volunteers within local election campaigns. It also identifies who is most likely to use these tools and who is most likely to perceive that they are useful. Existing studies of the use of Internet tools to mobilise volunteers are limited because they have typically focused upon the Internet-as-a-whole, instead of breaking it down into smaller, more meaningful categories. It is important to study Internet tools individually as they each have different features and some are more deeply integrated into mobilisation practices than others. Therefore, this thesis addresses this limitation by focusing upon three specific Internet tools: Facebook, Twitter and email. It uses data generated from a participant observation, survey and series of semi-structured interviews. Similarly, few studies have been carried out in England or within the context of second order elections. As a result, this thesis explores the perceptions of grassroots activists in relation to English local elections, thus offering a relatively unique perspective upon the link between Internet tools and volunteer mobilisation. The findings confirm that it is beneficial to analyse Internet tools individually because there are significant differences in how they are used, in addition to who uses them and who perceives them to be useful. Email is the most commonly used; it is also perceived to be the most useful for mobilising volunteers and increasing membership. Younger people are more likely to use Facebook and Twitter and to perceive that they are useful tools, whereas older people are less likely to do so. This emphasises the importance of younger supporters, as the party would find it more difficult to reach online audiences without them. This thesis argues that people that become involved as a result of Internet tools are less likely to remain heavily involved over the long-term. For instance, externally elected public officials are less likely to join online or use Internet tools to mobilise volunteers and increase membership. This fits with a wider pattern of engagement amongst party elites and long-term members. It emphasises the importance of using a combination of online and offline tools to mobilise volunteers and increase membership.