Democracy's Place
About this ebook
Democracy's Place includes seven essays in which Shapiro carefully integrates the theoretical and the applied. Four deal principally with democratic theory and its link to problems of social justice; the other three detail applications in the United States, the postcommunist world, and the author's native South Africa. All advance a view of democratic politics which rests on principled, yet nuanced, suspicion of hierarchical social arrangements and of political blueprints. Shapiro's writing is unified as well by a pervasive concern with the relations between the requirements of democracy and those of social justice. These themes, substantiated by complex yet accessible arguments, offer a constructive democratic perspective on contemporary debates about liberalism, communitarianism, and distributive justice.
About the author
Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University and Henry R. Luce Director at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. He is the author or editor of many books, including most recently The Flight from Reality in the Human Sciences and Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth.
