This thesis scrutinises the emergence, expansion, operations and effects of community-driven development (CDD) programmes, referring to the most popular and ambitious form of local, participatory development promoted by the World Bank. On the one hand, this thesis draws on the writings of Antonio Gramsci to explore new ways of contextualising and understanding CDD programmes along the lines of hegemony and transformism, as promoting social stability and demobilising counter-hegemonic challenges under conditions of democratisation and decentralisation, in support of economic liberalisation. On the other hand, it scrutinises the performative operations of CDD discourse in producing, legitimising and reproducing interventions, along the lines of "anti-politics," inspired by the Foucauldian approaches of James Ferguson and Tania Li. It also examines the performances elicited by CDD discourse, which "hails" politicians as "progressive" leaders, and "interpellates" the population as an "empowered" and "civil" society. Focusing on "Kalahi," the "flagship" CDD programme of the World Bank in the Philippines, in the "showcase" Province of Bohol, this research also reveals that CDD interventions, ostensibly designed to promote popular participation in local governance, have in practice worked to shore up the position of entrenched local machine politicians, and to undermine local peasant and fishermen's organisations mobilised to demand implementation of agrarian reform and legislation restricting large-scale fishing. Kalahi, the thesis further shows, was from the outset also intertwined with the expansion of agro-business and tourism ventures in the province, and with counterinsurgency operations. In parallel, Kalahi discourse has promoted new discursive styles of leadership, which have enabled local politicians to enhance their political clout and to reinforce their popular support base, whilst practices and institutions have remained essentially unchanged. Overall, this thesis thus shows that CDD programmes have worked to shore up hegemony in rural localities throughout the Philippines, and elsewhere across the developing world.

Britain has a fragmented, overlapping and under-resourced system of business representation. Attempts at reform, however, have proved difficult and largely unsuccessful. The thesis investigates the reasons for this failure, with an emphasis throughout upon the rationalisation of association structures and the political and economic significance of reform. A coherent and logical system of business representation is relevant, both in terms of an effective dialogue between government and business, and the promotion of competitiveness and productivity. Dialogue will prove difficult whilst there is a confused system of associations. Evidence suggests, moreover, that better organised and resourced associations would assist the competitiveness of British industry. The main focus of the thesis is the Devlin Commission on Industrial and Commercial Representation. This was set up in January 1971 by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce (ABCC) and was an attempt to both modernise and rationalise Britain's system of business representation. It reported in November 1972 but its recommendations would prove controversial with business and no significant changes would result. Devlin, therefore, was both a disappointment and a lost opportunity. The thesis also looks at how the debate regarding effective business representation has continued from both a business and government perspective. The Heseltine initiatives of the 1990's would, for example, bring fresh impetus to the subject and produce, among other measures, a series of benchmarking exercises leading to the establishment of the Trade Association Forum (TAF). The twin challenges of globalisation and new technologies are providing a new stimulus to change, leading to the renewed prospect of progress towards a more effective system of business representation. It is, therefore, an appropriate time to review the efforts made thirty years ago, learn lessons from them, and link the earlier debate to more recent efforts to secure reform.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War there has been a new radicalism across the social sciences espousing the need for global democracy. Taking its inspiration from theorisations of late 20th and early 21st century globalisation, advocates of Global Democratic Theory (GOT) look to transcend the violence, inequality and suffering that have often accompanied modernity. GOT thus offers normative visions and practical steps towards securing global citizenship and democracy, which would secure economic and social justice for all citizens of the world. The thesis proposes that GOT, due to its pursuit of its normative agenda, actually tells us very little about the current state of global politics. In order to move beyond the limitations of GOT, the thesis provides both theoretical and empirical advances. On the theoretical side, the thesis outlines how John Dewey's work in The Public and its Problems (1927) sets out an evolutionary form of democracy in response to a rapidly globalising economy. This Deweyan approach to global democracy and the lessons it provides has not been fully appreciated by contemporary scholars of globalisation. On the empirical side, Deweyan insights are used to interpret and explain the politics of the 'Financial Crisis' of 2008 and subsequent 'The Great Recession' in order to provide a richer account of the current state of global politics and the possibility of global democracy. In all, the thesis demonstrates how Dewey's work serves not only as a timely rejoinder to the theories of GOT but also offers important insights into the politics of contemporary globalisation.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the idea of spontaneous order as it appears in the classical liberal tradition of political thought. It will be argued that spontaneous order thought represents a distinctive approach to social theory; and the aim of the study will be to identify its core principles and to develop a conceptual model of the approach based upon them. To this end the study will examine a series of thematically linked topics in the work of the two groups of major exponents of the approach: the Scottish Enlightenment and the Twentieth Century Classical Liberal Revival. The examination of these topics - science, morality, law and government, and the market - will enable us to identify the common elements that characterise a spontaneous order approach. It will be argued that the spontaneous order approach operates with a particular notion of human nature: that men are classificatory beings who seek order and stability of expectations, and yet who are capable of only limited knowledge of the complex world in which they exist. Habitual and non-deliberative behaviour play a central role in this model of human behaviour, as does the assertion that men are naturally sociable and socialised within traditions of behaviour. Such traditions of behaviour exemplify the non-deliberative imitation of conventionally generated practices: in this sense 'objective' social values are in reality inter-subjectively generated conventions. Such conventions are neither deliberately nor intentionally created, but rather arise as the unintended consequences of man's adaptation to his circumstances. This leads the exponents of spontaneous order to adopt conjectural history and functionalist analyses as a means of understanding the development of social conventions. The study will trace their conjectural histories of morality, language, law and government, demonstrating the application of spontaneous order as a neutral descriptive approach to the examination of social phenomena. Similarly the process of social change and development will be examined as an evolutionary process. The role of adaptive change will be discussed in the light of a notion of immanent criticism that is itself drawn from the conjectural history of the evolution of human knowledge. Throughout this analysis a particular stress will be laid on the significance of the distinctive view of epistemology that underlies the spontaneous order approach.

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.

Liberal political theory has come under increased criticism in recent years for its supposed inability to sufficiently 'accommodate' or 'recognise' cultural difference. Liberalism, it is said, is insufficiently attentive to the importance of group attachments, is rooted in a universalism which undermines the boundaries between cultures and is, therefore, unable to adequately resolve those political conflicts which arise out of the cultural, religious and ethnic diversity found in contemporary Western societies. The thesis examines these claims and argues that liberalism is more resistant to criticism than many non-liberals (and liberals) believe. The thesis argues that liberalism is a necessarily 'comprehensive' doctrine, committed to the principle of individual autonomy and that this places constraints upon what groups can and cannot be allowed to do in the name of cultural values. It therefore challenges those 'political liberals' who seek to isolate individual autonomy as valuable only in the political sphere, and those other liberals who argue that liberalism should not commit itself to autonomy at all. The thesis argues that these liberals fail to displace the importance of autonomy in liberalism, and that they cannot help but appeal to precisely this principle in order to reach the conclusions they do. The thesis extends this argument to those pluralists, difference-theorists and advocates of a politics of 'recognition', who seek to replace liberalism with a new form of politics altogether. It shows that these doctrines presuppose the ability of each and every individual to reflect upon their ends and to justify them to within particular constraints in the same way as liberalism. It argues therefore, that these antiliberal theorists are required to encourage and defend the autonomy of each and every individual within the polity in much the same way as liberals. Finally, the thesis questions the significance of 'culture' to liberal political theory and to normative theorising more generally. Most specifically, it questions the link between cultural membership and personal autonomy made by liberals like Will Kymlicka and Joseph Raz. It argues that 'culture' is insufficiently determined in the literature and that this severely weakens the argument for the 'affirmation' or 'protection' of cultural groups. The thesis argues that once we begin to examine the idea of 'culture' (as it is used in the literature) in detail, we soon realise that cultural membership is not a prerequisite of individual autonomy in the way that culturalist liberals believe. Having argued as much, the thesis claims that the liberal argument for affording 'group rights' to cultures is severely weakened, as are similar arguments advanced by advocates of a politics of difference, recognition, cultural recognition, or pluralism.

This thesis is concerned to discuss two related questions in political theory. First, the relationship of 'theory' and 'practice', concentrating specifically on the relationship between 'philosophy' and 'polities'; and, secondly, how the political theory of the eighteenth century Enlightenment is helpful in revealing an answer to the first problem. In order to encompass this dual task, the thesis is divided into three parts. Part One, 'Philosophy in its Place', delineates two trends in modern political thought that most explicitly bracket off the theoretical and the practical. It goes on to discuss the thesis of Alisdair Maclntyre in AFTER VIRTUE, that it was the Enlightenment that was, in fact, the intellectual origin of these two trends. Chapter Two of Part One, continues this discussion by considering recent adaptations of the central claims (such as that offered by Bernard Williams), and challenges to them from thinkers who emphasise the methodological importance of the history of thought (such as Maclntyre himself, and Richard Rorty). It concludes with an analysis of an issue central to the discussions of all three thinkers: incommensurability. Part Two, 'Theory and Practice in the Enlightenment’s Politics ', consists of three chapters which together offer an interpretation of the Enlightenment's reflections on the relation between theory and practice and, specifically, of the two thinkers most important for this question, Hume and Kant. The analysis also discusses rival interpretations and concentrates specifically on refuting Maclntyre's arguments in AFTER VIRTUE on the nature, character and implications of Enlightenment thought. Part Three, 'Bringing Philosophy Back In', ties these various threads together by first discussing the methodological questions set out in Part One in more detail, and then by showing how the Enlightenment's thought on this topic is still of the utmost importance for modern political theorists and why this should be so.

The aims of this study are to elucidate and present systematically the main themes of Paine's political and social thought by means of a comprehensive analysis of all his writings; to investigate the foundations of, developments in, and interconnections between these themes, and to point out their main limitations. These aims are explored after reviews of, (1) commonly held beliefs about Paine, which are shown to be based on superficial acquaintance with his writings, and (2) of specific studies of his thought the disagreements between which are shown to involve more than reflections of inconsistencies in Paine's own writings. Commencing with an account of Paine's favourable view of human nature and his idea of universal justice, the study presents as fundamental his religious thought - his belief in a benevolent God - in the context of a discussion of competing Quaker and Newtonian Deist interpretations neither of which is satisfactory. An examination of Paine's ideas of a fairly orderly state of nature, of equal natural rights, and of the origin of government in a social compact, helps us to understand his beliefs in the need for government, and about the purposes of government and its relationships to society; and we see that he did not view governments as responsible for all social evils. Paine's model of republican government is then considered and it is seen to involve more than just the absence of monarchy: it has both moral foundations and involves a view of an appropriate constitutional form. These and their significance for popular sovereignty and political participation are discussed in relation to the question why Paine did not see electoral despotism as a problem. Paine gave moral sanction to revolution when it was necessary for introducing republican government. It is next shown why, and to what extent, he failed to take actual circumstances adequately into account before welcoming political reform. The origins and development of Paine's social welfare proposals are next traced, and his idea of social justice in found to be not inconsistent with, but rather an extension of, his earlier moral and political beliefs, even though it involved him in advocating an increased scope for government. He is shown to have emphasised as important the roles of religion and education, and to have envisaged improvements in international relations through the operation of commerce and the establishment of republican governments and international institutions. It is also shown that, far from desiring a return to a simpler form of society, he supported progress, and that his idea of progress did not involve a belief in perfectibility, This study does not furnish a biography of Paine, investigate in detail the external influences upon his thought, or examine his historical importance and literary style. It does, however, point to comparisons and contrasts between Paine's ideas and the ideas of other thinkers of his time, and it includes a list, and summaries, of his main writings, along with a note on his reading which, with a date-chart of his life, suggests that he was more knowledgeable than has often been supposed. It is concluded that Paine, although not a great political or social thinker, nor an entirely consistent or complete thinker, presented a not wholly unoriginal system of ideas which, because not expressed in any one work, has not been fully recognised. By reference to this system of ideas, some discrepancies in previous accounts of his thought are clarified, and some neglected aspects of his thought elucidated.

No description available.

Individual autonomy is crucial to both liberalism and feminism and, to some extent, for similar reasons: that is, the insistence on everyone being able to shape her own life and not just have it shaped for her. As it is currently understood, however, this ideal is a source of great dissatisfaction for feminists. For one, it is blind to the ‘problem of oppression’ –that is the way social factors, such as oppressive gender norms, can affect individuals’ capacity to lead a selfgoverned life. In addition, on the political level, autonomy is aligned with individualism, independence and rationality. This makes it an exclusionary ideal, which, under the cover of universalism, promotes a prejudiced and narrow vision of what agents and preferences should be seen as worthy of respect. I refer to this as the problem of exclusion. My thesis is an attempt to reframe our understanding of autonomy in order to answer these two problems. I argue that the relational accounts of autonomy feminists have articulated should be understood as motivated by the need to address these key concerns (Ch. 1). However, none of the relational accounts developed so far truly succeed in simultaneously addressing the problem of oppression and the problem of exclusion (Ch. 2). I suggest that this is because they are still too individualistic in their focus and remain fixed on the question of what individual agent and/or preference should be considered autonomous. In order to ensure we avoid the problem of exclusion, I propose we remain agnostic towards this question. This results in a systematic presumption of autonomy, which commits us to demonstrate respect to all agents (especially vulnerable ones), as well as to their declared preferences. Such a commitment, however, should not lead us to overlook the problem of oppression. In order to address this problem, I argue that we should devote our attention to the way the socio-relational context structures how agents can plausibly exercise their autonomy. In other words, in order to address the problem of oppression without reproducing the problem of exclusion, we need to stop focusing on the question of who should be considered autonomous and instead refocus on the question of what structural changes might promote the autonomy of all (Ch. 3). I call the resulting account an ‘agnostic and structural’ understanding of autonomy. I argue that such a conception of autonomy is promising as it offers an inclusive conception of self-government, which nonetheless gives us grounds to vindicate substantial emancipatory policies. I then present a set of case studies in order to show how such a conception of autonomy could help us deal with entrenched gender inequalities. Doing so enables me to illustrate the difference adopting an ‘agnostic and structural’ conception of autonomy could make in the areas of our legal system that are underpinned by an individualistic understanding of autonomy. Legal frameworks surrounding parental leave (Ch. 4), divorce and separation (Ch. 5), domestic violence (Ch. 6) and even our understanding of criminal responsibility (Ch. 7), I argue, could be effectively reframed using the kind of understanding of autonomy I propose.