Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism

This book is a systematic and thorough analysis of what post-modernity is and how it emerged. It distinguishes between those who regard post-modernity as a theoretical approach and those who regard it as a culture, and argues that interpreting post-modernity as a culture is more fruitful. It discusses the three factors which led to its emergence, namely liberalism, capitalism, and secularism, highlighting their respective influence in generating the culture of post-modernity within neoliberal societies.

The volume provides a lengthy analysis of neoliberal post-modernity in practice, arguing that post-modernism is the cultural condition of neoliberal societies in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Until recently it seemed that neoliberal post-modernity was here to stay, framed by relationship to freedom and time which stressed individual agency but precluded the possibility of historical change at the political level. However, the Great Recession of2008 opened new spaces for agitation and transformation which has resulted in the discordant politics of the last decade. This book will be of interest to scholars working in a number of fields, including economic policy, cultural analysis, political theory, and social critique.

This book explores controversies surrounding free speech and open inquiry (FSOI) in various regions of the Anglophone world. The authors argue that the past decade has seen a noticeable erosion of FSOI across the globe, aided and abetted by university clerisies and state apparatuses. These groups’ policing of language and pandering to cancel culture, the authors argue, have narrowed the Overton window to the point of reinvigorating the push for blasphemy law within liberal democracies themselves and impeding certain avenues scientific research. While most books on the subject discuss the American constitutional context of the First Amendment, this book considers free speech in the wider context of other Anglo countries. It also includes scholars from a variety of disciplines whose approaches will not only be ideologically distinct, but demonstrate a diversity of disciplinary approaches and concerns.

This book covers how Liberal institutions – constitutional democracy, economic markets, liberal courts, free trade, international human rights – around the world are under assault by the political right and we are witnessing the emergence of post-liberal institutions. These post-liberal institutions are founded on the core conviction that the actions of liberal institutions including the United States Supreme Court are patently unjust. This volume makes the case against post-liberal courts and justice by reconnecting to the principles of moral equality and dignified freedom for all. The intention is to show how there is great untapped potential in the work of Ronald Dworkin’s work to demonstrate that it can help progressive liberals think through the great issues of the day and respond to the contemporary criticisms of the political right. The core themes are concretely illustrated by focusing on some of the most controversial recent post-liberal decisions of the Supreme Court, ranging from election funding to abortion to race-sensitive affirmative action, to economic inequality in an age of increasingly unequal opportunities.

This open access book by Nils Karlson explores the strategies used by left- and right-wing populists to make populism intelligible, recognizable, and contestable. It presents a synthesized explanatory model for how populists promote autocratization through the deliberate polarization of society. It traces the ideational roots of the core populist ideas and shows that these ideas form a collectivistic identity politics.

Karlson argues that to fight back requires the revival of liberalism itself by defending and developing the liberal institutions, the liberal spirit, liberal narratives, and liberal statecraft.  The book also presents and discusses an extensive list of counterstrategies against populism. 

Written within the tradition of political theory and institutional economics, this book uses a wide variety of sources, including results and analyses from social psychology, ethics, law, and history.

George Grant (1918-1988) was one of Canada’s foremost public philosophers. Though his thought arose out of reflection on the history of political philosophy, pressing political concerns were never far from view. He was particularly adept at locating the causes of political developments in philosophical movements that were centuries in the making. This book reassesses his ideas in light of philosophical and political developments of recent decades, including the resurgence of nationalism, criticisms of globalization and technocracy, and the ideological realignments having a particularly noticeable effect on right-wing politics. The contemporary reader of Grant is thus able to reflect on his broader criticisms of modernity from within a slightly different historical articulation of modernity. Though George Grant died in 1988, the philosophical themes in his work remain relevant into the 21^st century.

This book is a study of comparative social and political theory, examining how Hayek’s classical liberalism has been influencing the development of Chinese liberalism since 1949.

While both Chinese liberalism and the thought of Hayek can each be studied in its own right, this is the first systematic study on how Hayek’s ideas have helped post-war Chinese liberals enrich their social and political theory in the pursuit of freedom and in formulating theoretical responses to the challenges of modernity in China. This book examines and identifies those central theoretical tenets of Hayek that are most inspiring to the post-war Chinese liberals in their efforts in developing a more robust and profound understanding of freedom in the Chinese context. It argues that the new post-war understanding of Chinese liberalism has superseded the social democratic understanding that was widely adopted by pre-war Chinese liberals. These theoretical/Hayekian tenets include:  the critique of totalitarianism and scientism, the idea of the free market, the insights inherited from the Scottish Enlightenment to counter the excess of Cartesian Rationalism, the thesis of the concurrent evolution of culture and mind, and the central importance of the rule of law in defending individual freedom. 

This book aims to help political theorists and historians of comparative political thought both in the East and in the West better understand the intellectual issues involved and explore further research endeavours in the same area.

This book takes a hard look at libertarian foreign policy doctrines, especially those of non-intervention, interstate federalism, and non-aggression, and applies new insights to these old doctrines. Classical liberal thinkers such as Vincent Ostrom, James Madison, and F.A. Hayek have all hinted at the idea of world governance from a libertarian standpoint. Yet today, “the libertarian position” on foreign policy is either non-intervention from the US side of the Atlantic or half-hearted confederation from the European side of the Atlantic. This volume (I) hones in on the problems of Westphalian sovereignty and its nationalist shortcomings, while the other celebrates Westphalian sovereignty’s achievements in regards to keeping imperialism at bay.

The book takes a hard look at libertarian foreign policy doctrines, especially those of non-intervention, interstate federalism, and non-aggression, and applies new insights to these old doctrines. Classical liberal thinkers such as Vincent Ostrom, James Madison, and F.A. Hayek have all hinted at the idea of world governance from a libertarian standpoint. Yet today, “the libertarian position” on foreign policy is either non-intervention from the US side of the Atlantic or a halfhearted confederation from the European side of the Atlantic. The themes that emerge in this volume (II) are whether or not libertarian alternatives to the status quo are workable and, if so, whatwould they look like.

This book explores the phenomenon of political correctness in academia and explains why and how scholars and administrators impact PC’s prominence in the academic sphere. To do so, it examines the actions of these agents through the lens of public choice theory, revealing how self-interested strategies drive the policies and norms of the university.

The book examines the ideological dimensions of political correctness and highlights four key spheres of influence – academic research, higher education curricula, affirmative action and speech codes. The book offers a nuanced exploration of how PC and liberalism have common ground. It demonstrates how the liberal values of equality and individual liberty largely underpin PC, whose regulatory function is to protect a liberal value system from illiberal truth claims. Yet the book also shows how interest groups form around the concept of PC in universities and have successfully used systems of rent-seeking and collective action to shape institutional policy and protect their members from ideological and professional competition, which can be seen as a violation of classical liberal principles of fair competition and equal opportunity. This book is a valuable tool for researchers working in political economy and PPE (politics, philosophy and economics), as well as those interested in the political economy of academia and the concept of PC more generally.