This book, first published in 2000, analyses global change which critiques modern social thought and global theory, examining global-democratic revolution.

This book offers a moral argument for world government, claiming that not only do we have strong obligations to people elsewhere, but that accountable integration among nation-states will help ensure all persons can lead a decent life.

Sure to stir controversy and debate, A Theory of Global Capitalism will be of interest to sociologists and economists alike.

What should we expect from democracy, and how likely is it that democracies will live up to those expectations? In The State of Democratic Theory, Ian Shapiro offers a critical assessment of contemporary answers to these questions, lays out his distinctive alternative, and explores its implications for policy and political action. Some accounts of democracy's purposes focus on aggregating preferences; others deal with collective deliberation in search of the common good. Shapiro reveals the shortcomings of both, arguing instead that democracy should be geared toward minimizing domination throughout society. He contends that Joseph Schumpeter's classic defense of competitive democracy is a useful starting point for achieving this purpose, but that it stands in need of radical supplementation--both with respect to its operation in national political institutions and in its extension to other forms of collective association. Shapiro's unusually wide-ranging discussion also deals with the conditions that make democracy's survival more and less likely, with the challenges presented by ethnic differences and claims for group rights, and with the relations between democracy and the distribution of income and wealth. Ranging over politics, philosophy, constitutional law, economics, sociology, and psychology, this book is written in Shapiro's characteristic lucid style--a style that engages practitioners within the field while also opening up the debate to newcomers.

In The State of State Theory: State Projects, Repression, and Multi-Sites of Power, Glasberg, Willis, and Shannon argue that state theories should be amended to account both for theoretical developments broadly in the contemporary period as well as the multiple sites of power along which the state governs. Using state projects and policies around political economy, sexuality and family, food, welfare policy, racial formation, and social movements as narrative accounts in how the state operates, the authors argue for a complex and intersectional approach to state theory. In doing so, they expand outside of the canon to engage with perspectives within critical race theory, queer theory, and beyond to build theoretical tools for a contemporary and critical state theory capable of providing the foundations for understanding how the state governs, what is at stake in its governance, and, importantly, how people resist and engage with state power.

Exposes the deep logical contradictions of Realist political thought and counters it with a new, more robust theory of war

Global theory represents an influential and popular means of understanding contemporary social and political phenomena. Human identity and social responsibilities are considered in a global context and in the light of a global human condition. A global perspective is assumed to be new and to supersede preceding social theory. However, if contemporary global theory is influential, its identity, assumptions and novelty are controversial. Global Theory from Kant to Hardt and Negri scrutinises global theory by examining how contemporary global theorists simultaneously draw upon and critique preceding modern theories. It re-thinks contemporary global ideas by relating them to the social thought of Kant, Hegel and Marx, and in so doing highlights divergent ambiguous aspects of contemporary global theories, as well as the continuing impact of the ideas of Kant, Hegel and Marx.