African American political thought reimagined: A review of African American Political Thought: A Collected History

This review essay surveys the contributions of the new edited volume African American Political Thought: A Collected History. The thinker-based approach to the study of African American political thought advanced in the volume highlights the ways in which thinkers reformulate the central political questions of the intellectual tradition and constitute the canon through the citation and invocation of earlier figures. It also draws attention to the rhetorical, strategic, and tactical dimensions of their political thought. The volume sets a new standard for study of African American political thought and makes a persuasive case for the tradition’s important contributions to political theory broadly. However, by tying its significance too closely to its interventions within American political thought, the volume inadvertently minimizes the global resonances of African American political thought.

Norman Mailer and American Totalitarianism in the 1960s

This article investigates Norman Mailer's appropriation and Americanization of the concept of totalitarianism as an internal critique of US society and culture in the 1960s. Dominant understandings of totalitarianism from the 1930s to the 1950s focused on external threats and were wedded to notions of pervasive state control of all aspects of life. Mailer's crucial intervention offered an alternative theory which viewed totalitarianism as an internal threat to the United States and de-emphasized the centrality of the state. His theory of cultural totalitarianism focused on internal psychological manipulation rather than external political coercion. Mailer's focus on the United States was symptomatic of a broader intellectual trend towards the study of non-statist forms of totalitarianism which has yet to receive adequate scholarly attention. This article thus illuminates new dimensions of the totalitarianism debate in American political thought and provides a fuller picture of Mailer's significance as a social critic.

THE REALISM OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM IN ACHIEVING INTERNATIONAL STABILITY: THE MIDDLE EAST AS A MODEL (2003-2020)

Purpose of the study: This research seeks to analyze the nature of American realism in achieving international stability in the Middle East. Methodology: This research adopted the logical, historical, and decision-making approaches to measure the extent of its impact on the structure of the international, regional system. Main Findings: Based on the nature of the international strategic situation, the American administration is required to change its approach in maintaining its interests through the use of realism in its traditional and modern concept and its contemporary lines of thought that reflect the American political thought at the external level in dealing with the changes and events taking place in the structure of the regional system in the Middle East. Applications of this study: This research is scientifically and practically significant since it: Contributes to enriching the theoretical aspect of the academic studies on developments in the reality of the American administration and its use of this model in achieving international stability in the Middle East region. Novelty/Originality of this study: This research completely discussed the perceptions about the tracks of the American administration and the extent of use of realism in achieving international stability, especially in the Middle East region. As well as define the realist conditions, means, methods, and tools adopted by the American administration in strengthening the power theory to achieve international stability and enhancing its position in the Middle East.

Constitutionalism in the periphery: revisiting the roots of self-rule movements in Ireland and India

This article re-examines the constitutionalism that underlay moderate self-rule movements in Ireland and India. We argue that early self-rule movements in India and Ireland were rooted in the same civic republican tradition that also influenced Anglo-American political thought but developed it in ways that have no counterparts in English political thought. These developments left a lasting legacy on constitutional thought in India and Ireland and present a contrast with nineteenth-century British political and constitutional thought. Through an examination of Mill and Dicey’s views on empire, we show that constitutional thought in the UK saw a shift away from older republican traditions of politics towards an interests-based constitutionalism, which saw government as being justified by its efficiency in promoting particular interests. We conclude by considering some of the broader implications of our work for the manner in which the British Empire is treated in constitutional scholarship in the present day.

Protest and Dissent

Protests abound in contemporary political life, including in the United States: One-fifth of Americans reported having participated in a political protest between early 2016 and early 2018. Protest and Dissent examines the justification, strategy, and limits of mass demonstrations and other forms of resistance, drawing, in the distinctive NOMOS fashion, from political science, philosophy, and law. Its linked chapters are informed by African American political thought, Gandhian nonviolence, the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and the dynamics of recent social movements. In the ten chapters of Protest and Dissent, the authors challenge their fellow contributors and readers to reimagine the boundaries between civil and uncivil disagreement, between political reform and radical transformation, and between democratic ends and means. The volume has three parts. The first takes up the justification of civil and uncivil disobedience; the second addresses the strategic logic of political protest; and the third analyzes the democratic implications of protest and dissent, including in comparative perspective.

Disobedience In Black

Philosophical and political questions about the legitimacy of uncivil disobedience have been a core preoccupation of African American political thought since its inception. Additionally, a systematic misreading of black protest movements, particularly the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, has been a fundamental referent for philosophical defenses of a right to civil disobedience. This essay takes Candice Delmas’s defense of uncivil disobedience as a point of departure to reflect on how African American political thought challenges dominant liberal understandings of dissent, and to consider the conceptions of political obligation that should accompany accounts of principled lawbreaking.

The Paradox of Partisanship

This chapter examines the paradox of partisanship. In 1950, the American Political Science Association put out a major report arguing for a “more responsible two-party system.” The two parties—the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—were then largely indistinguishable coalitions of parochial local parties, and the political scientists argued that too little, rather than too much polarization, was the problem. This sets up a paradox: Some party division is necessary, but too much can be deadly. Various traditions in American political thought have tried to resolve this paradox. Antipartisans have urged consensus above all. Responsible partisans have urged competition above all. Meanwhile, bipartisans have urged compromise above all. Consensus is impossible. However, both compromise and competition are essential to democracy. Only the neglected multiparty tradition can solve the paradox with the right balance of competition and compromise.