Designing a Polity: America's Constitution in Theory and Practice
Autor James W. Ceaseren Limba Engleză Hardback – 16 dec 2010
În lucrarea Designing a Polity, James W. Ceaser propune o recalibrare a studiului guvernământului american prin readucerea în prim-plan a viziunii Părinților Fondatori. Volumul aduce nou o sinteză actualizată a eseurilor autorului din ultimul deceniu, revizuite extensiv pentru a răspunde dinamicii politice contemporane. Ne-a atras atenția modul în care Ceaser refuză să trateze Constituția ca pe un artefact istoric, argumentând pentru relevanța ei continuă în știința politică modernă.
Considerăm că această abordare completează perspectiva oferită de James Madison de Samuel Kernell, adăugând o critică filosofică riguroasă la adresa curentelor post-moderniste reprezentate de Richard Rorty sau Jacques Derrida, elemente care lipsesc din analizele pur instituționale. Structura cărții urmărește o progresie logică: începe cu bazele filosofice (Tocqueville și Leo Strauss), trece prin arhitectura constituțională și relația dintre președinte și Congres, pentru a culmina cu o analiză a conservatorismului modern și a originilor antiamericanismului.
În contextul operei sale, Designing a Polity reprezintă puntea teoretică între analizele electorale aplicate din Defying the Odds și reflecțiile despre educație din Liberal Democracy and Liberal Education. Dacă în lucrările anterioare Ceaser se concentra pe mecanica alegerilor sau pe rolul instituțiilor mediatoare, aici el investighează fundamentul ideologic care susține întregul edificiu republican. Este o lucrare de maturitate care demonstrează cum filosofia politică poate fi „adusă cu picioarele pe pământ” pentru a explica polarizarea și provocările democratice de astăzi.
Preț: 261.15 lei
Preț vechi: 516.04 lei
-49%
Carte disponibilă
Livrare economică 15-27 mai
Livrare express 25 aprilie-01 mai pentru 209.18 lei
Specificații
ISBN-10: 1442207906
Pagini: 232
Dimensiuni: 154 x 232 x 24 mm
Greutate: 0.48 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Rowman & Littlefield
Locul publicării:New York, United States
De ce să citești această carte
Această carte este esențială pentru studenții și cercetătorii care doresc să înțeleagă nu doar cum funcționează instituțiile americane, ci și de ce au fost proiectate astfel. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă clară asupra legăturii dintre gândirea lui Madison și conservatorismul contemporan, primind instrumente critice pentru a evalua dezbaterile politice actuale prin prisma teoriei constituționale clasice.
Despre autor
James W. Ceaser este profesor de politică la Universitatea din Virginia și cercetător asociat la Hoover Institution. Recunoscut ca unul dintre cei mai importanți specialiști în dezvoltarea politică americană, Ceaser face parte din grupul de lucru Boyd și Jill pentru Virtuțile unei Societăți Libere. Opera sa vastă acoperă de la analize detaliate ale ciclurilor electorale americane până la studii profunde despre educația liberală și rolul profesiilor în viața civică, fiind distins pentru capacitatea de a îmbina rigoarea istorică cu analiza politică aplicată.
Descriere
Cuprins
Chapter 2 Chapter 1: The Doctrine of Political Nonfoundationalism
Chapter 3 Chapter 2: The Two-Founding Thesis: Political Foundations in Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Chapter 4 Chapter 3: American Political Foundations in the Thought of Leo Strauss
Chapter 5 Section II: The Founders, Constitutional Design, and the Role of Political Science
Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Fame and The Federalist: The American Founders and the Recovery of Political Science
Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Demagoguery, Statesmanship, and Presidential Politics
Chapter 8 Chapter 6: Doctrines of Presidential-Congressional Relations
Chapter 9 Section III. Modern Conservatism
Chapter 10 Chapter 7: Four Heads and One Heart: The Modern Conservative Movement
Chapter 11 Chapter 8: The Social Construction of the Reagan Legacy
Chapter 12 Section IV. The American Way of Life
Chapter 13 Chapter 9: The Theoretical Origins of Anti-Americanism
Recenzii
This book was a pleasure to read. The title implies a treatise on constitutional design; the work really comprises nine well-crafted essays by one of the premier scholars of American political thought. Each essay is a stand-alone gem--Ceaser is well-known for his elegant, dignified style and gentle humor--but they also constitute a compelling story, and are nicely grouped into different sections. The first section contemplates political foundations, and includes an excellent general theoretical treatment of foundationalism and nonfoundationalism, followed by a beautiful and original analysis of Tocqueville, and a piece on Leo Strauss that is worth the entire book price. Ceaser (Univ. of Virginia) then presents three tight essays on applying a science of politics to the questions of fame, statesmanship, and presidential-congressional relations. The third section includes three essays on modern conservatives and the construction of the Reagan legacy. The book concludes with "The Theoretical Origins of Anti-Americanism," which Ceaser writes "is arguably the only ideology of our day that has a worldwide reach." Every serious student of contemporary and historical American politics, or of American political thought, should keep this book handy. Essential. All readership levels.
American exceptionalism' has found one of its best explainers in James W. Ceaser. His Designing a Polity: America's Constitution in Theory and Practice is written with verve, erudition and a wide-ranging eye on the political world. Anyone who reads it will no longer feel amazement or surprise that the health care overhaul, the conduct of the Iraq War or many other hot-button issues are argued about in terms of its compatibility or incompatibility with a document that went into effect in 1789.
For those who have already benefited from reading Ceaser, Designing a Polity: America's Constitution in Theory and Practice is an important complement to his previous writings. For those who haven't yet had the pleasure, his new book is a particularly good point of entry to his thought. Designing a Polity brings together nine superb essays, revised to take account of developments subsequent to their original publication....[Ceaser's] work deserves our careful attention. If we want to investigate the American polity in all its complexity...then we must hail, but above all read, our Ceaser.
Throughout is long and prolific career, James Ceaser has brought a ready wit and literary grace to political science, a discipline seldom oversupplied with either. Designing a Polity asks political scientists to think along with the American founders-to think about politics politically instead of reducing it to the play of subspolitical forces. He shows how thinking about politics changes for the better if the thinker does not make reductionist or deconstructionist assumptions. That's why the founders could design the polity they left for posterity, and that's how the understand, continue, and at times reform their work.
Designing a Polity is not an easy book to review. The scope of the essays and Ceaser's erudition and penetrating insights cannot be described in any meaningful way in a few summative sentences. That having been said, this reviewer hopes, at least, to have conveyed the breadth of the author's thinking, his passion for his subject, and to have produced a desire to read more James W. Ceaser.
James Ceaser is our country's leading scholar in American politics. These venturesome essays display his originality, his inventive formulations, and his theoretical insight.
James Ceaser, a prominent student of American political thought, never fails to instruct and provoke. The essays included in Designing a Polity are no exception. The eye-opening chapter on Tocqueville should spark a reconsideration of the foundations of American democracy and of the distinctive features of Tocqueville's account.
Ceaser has a sophisticated understanding of theoretical issues and writes with philosophical insight, but in a manner that brings philosophy down to earth. ...He brings his historical and philosophical knowledge to bear on American polity in a way that does credit to political science.