This book examines the role and function of the state in contemporary economics from a number of diverse economic perspectives, including Austrian, feminist, institutionalist, Marxian, radical and Post Keynesian.

How David Hume and Adam Smith forged a new way of thinking about the modern state What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's long-underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, The Opinion of Mankind considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the "opinion of mankind," the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, The Opinion of Mankind also suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory.

This book takes a radically different approach to the analysis of competition by rejecting the perfect vs. imperfect competition dichotomy and draws on the insights of classical political economists such as Marx, Schumpeter, Hayek and Andrews.

From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

This timeless classic by Harold J. Laski explains the nature of the modern state by examining its characteristics, as revealed by its history. The State in Theory and Practice is a work that grows in significance, rather than dwindles over time. This is because, as Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. points out, Laski helped develop and expound the foundational arguments of the political left. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, even on the hard left, few people thought of Marxism, at least in its classical formulation by Laski in the 1930s, as a political alternative. Much of the interest in Laski seeks to separate the early Laski of pluralist parliamentary arguments from the later Laski of Marxism. Laski's appeal rests on subtle aspects of his science of politics that require a detailed examination before their full significance can be understood. The state is a work that operates at several layers of assumptions and implications. The significance of Laski starts with the observation that among many intellectuals on the left, the political critique of liberal democracy remains as influential after the collapse of the Soviet Union as it was when Laski wrote. The leftist critique of classical liberalism is one of the touchstones of modern political thought and Laski remains part of that tradition. Laski is one of the links between what might be called the "old left" of the pre-World War II era and the "new left" of the 1960's and later. Harold J. Laski (1893-1950) was an esteemed British political scientist, economist, author, and lecturer. He taught at McGill University and Harvard. From 1926 until his death he was professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His works include Karl Marx, Democracy in Crisis, The American Presidency, and The Rise of European Liberalism. Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. is visiting professor of political science at Virginia Tech and professor emeritus of political science at Radford University. He is the series editor of Transaction's Library of Liberal Thought. He has written many new introductions for books including Presidential Leadership, Party Government, and The New Democracy.