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Why does agency — the capacity to make choices and to act in the world — matter to us? Why is it meaningful that our intentions have effects in the world, that they reflect our sense of identity, that they embody what we value? What kinds of motivations are available for political agency and judgment in an age that lacks the enthusiasm associated with the great emancipatory movements for civil rights and gender equality? What are the conditions for the possibility of being an effective agent when the meaning of democracy has become less transparent? This book addresses these crucial questions by uncovering the political, moral, philosophical, and religious dimensions of human agency. The book treats agency as a form of religious experience that reflects implicit and explicit notions of the good. Of particular concern are the moral, political, and religious motivations that underpin an understanding of agency as meaningful action. Through a critical engagement with the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Stanley Cavell, this book argues that late modern and postmodern agency is found most effectively at work in “projects of regenerating agency” or critical and strategic responses to loss. Agency as melancholic freedom begins and endures, this text maintains, through the moral and psychic losses associated with a broad range of experiences, including the moral identities shaped by secularized modernity and the multi-fold forms of alienation experienced by those who suffer the indignities of racial, gender, class, and sexuality discrimination and oppression. This book calls for renewing the sense of urgency in our political and moral engagements by seeing agency as a vocation, where the aspiration for self-transformation and the human need for hope are fundamental concerns.

This book tells the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers' ground-breaking victory, drawing important lessons from this dramatic tale. Since the 1900s, large-scale agricultural enterprises relied on migrant labor—a cheap, unorganized, and powerless workforce. In 1965, when some 800 Filipino grape workers began to strike under the aegis of the AFL-CIO, the UFW soon joined the action with 2,000 Mexican workers and turned the strike into a civil rights struggle. They engaged in civil disobedience, mobilized support from churches and students, boycotted growers, and transformed their struggle into La Causa, a farm workers' movement that eventually triumphed over the grape industry's Goliath. Why did they succeed? How can the powerless challenge the powerful successfully? Offering insight from a long-time movement organizer and scholar, the book illustrates how they had the ability and resourcefulness to devise good strategy and turn short-term advantages into long-term gains. The book covers the movement's struggles, set-backs, and successes.

This book examines the religious beliefs, commitments, affiliation, and practices (church attendance, prayer, Bible reading, and personal morality) of eleven presidents, discusses the influences upon and nature of their faith, and assesses how it contributed to their understanding of political ideology and practice. It also analyzes how these presidents’ religious views and values helped shape the way they formulated and promoted specific policies. In addition, the book examines how presidents dealt with religious constituencies, interest groups, and leaders, evaluated religious issues (such as religious liberty, the relationship between church and the state, government support for religion, the proper place of religion in public life, and the connection between religion and public morality and civic duty), and appraised key public policy matters (such as the proper tasks of government, civil rights, education, and war and peace). The book explores social and cultural factors that influenced these presidents, but it focuses primarily on the intellectual and moral presuppositions that helped guide their understanding of political and religious issues and their actions while in office. Special attention is paid to five themes: the separation of church and state, civil religion, America as a chosen nation, the nature of their convictions, and the issue of character. Does the concept of the separation of church and state require presidents to confine their religious values to their private lives and operate from a secular perspective in fulfilling their office? Is it proper for a president’s religious convictions to direct him in performing his duties, devising a philosophy of government, and implementing his policies? How have presidents served as both the nation’s pastor and prophet, called on at times to comfort and assure Americans and at others to challenge and inspire them? To what extent has the pervasive belief that America is divinely chosen to spread democracy, individual liberty, and justice to the world influenced presidents’ actions? How have their worldviews — blueprints for understanding, explaining, and managing reality — influenced presidents’ thoughts and actions? What factors, including religious training, biblical study, and spiritual nurture, have shaped the character of these presidents?

Examines which political principles should govern global politics. It explores ethical issues in justice that arise at the global level and addresses questions such as: are there universal values, and if so, what are they; what human rights, if any, are there; are there global principles of distributive justice; should there be a system of supra-state institutions; is national self-determination defensible; when, if ever, may political regimes wage war; and is humanitarian intervention justified?

The book outlines and defends an egalitarian liberal brand of cosmopolitanism to address these questions, maintaining that there are universal principles, arguing that these include universal civil and political human rights, and defending the application of global principles of distributive justice. On this basis, it makes a case for a system of supra-state political institutions to promote these universal principles of justice further. Having set out principles of ideal theory, the book then examines what principles should apply when injustices are committed. To do this it examines when political regimes may wage war and when they may engage in intervention, and thereby draws on cosmopolitan principles to derive and defend a cosmopolitan conception of just war and humanitarian intervention. In arriving at these conclusions, the book engages in a sustained analysis of the competing arguments on all the above issues, examining the arguments of nationalists, realists, and those who affirm the ideal of a society of states. To do this, the book explores and integrates the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars, and illustrates its ethical argument and theoretical analysis with empirical examples. Furthermore, it argues that the issues examined in the book cannot be adequately treated in isolation from each other but must be treated as an interlinked whole.

This book explores bill of rights outcomes in four countries — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — whose development exhibits an interesting combination of both commonality and difference. Whilst sharing a core ‘Westminster’ political set‐up, more recent experiences display striking diversity. Comparative analysis of some thirty‐six democracies demonstrates that the historic lack of a bill of rights in Westminster countries is best explained by, firstly, the absence of a clear political transition and, secondly, by their strong British constitutional heritage. Detailed chapters then explore recent developments. In all the countries, postmaterialist socio‐economic change has resulted in a growing emphasis on legal formalization, codified civil liberties, and social equality. Pressure for a bill of rights has therefore increased. Nevertheless, by enhancing judicial power, bills of rights conflict with the prima facie positional interests of the political elite. Given this, change in this area has also required a political trigger which provides an immediate rationale for change. Alongside social forces, the nature of this trigger determines both the strength and substance of the bill of rights enacted. The statutory Canadian Bill of Rights Act (CBORA 1960), New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBOR 1990), and the Human Rights Act (UK) (HRA 1998) were prompted politically by a relatively weak and backward‐looking ‘aversive’ reaction against perceived abuses of power under the previous administration. Meanwhile, the fully constitutional Canadian Charter (1982) had its political origins in a stronger, more self‐interested, and prospective need to find a new unifying institution to counter the destabilizing, centripetal power of the Québécois nationalist movement. Finally, the absence of any relevant political trigger explains the failure of national bill of rights initiatives in Australia. The conclusionary section of the book argues that this Postmaterialist Trigger Thesis (PTT) explanation of change can also explain the origins of bills of rights in other internally stable, advanced democracies, notably the Israeli Basic Laws on human rights (1992).