Kirjahaku

It is usually taken for granted that, in liberal democracies, a bond of political ‘obligation’ exists between citizens and the state. The substantive, and controversial, argument of this book is that political obligation constitutes an insoluble problem in the liberal democratic state. It is argued that the problem can be solved only within the context of a participatory democratic system. In reaching this conclusion Carole Pateman offers a general assessment of liberal theory and an interpretation of all the familiar arguments about political obligation and democratic consent. Current controversies about ‘democracy’ and political obligation are fully discussed in the light of both philosophical debate and empirical evidence from research in the social sciences. The Problem of Political Obligation was first published in 1979. This new edition retains the original text but includes a substantial new chapter which clarifies further the central themes of the work.

Carole Pateman is one of the foremost political theorists writing in English today. In this outstanding new work, she presents a major reinterpretation of modern political theory. She shows how standard discussions of social contract theory tell only half the story. The sexual contract which establishes modern patriarchy and the political right of men over women is never mentioned. In a wide-ranging and scholarly discussion, Pateman examines the significance of the political fictions of the original contract and the slave contract. She also offers a sweeping challenge to conventional understandings - of both left and right - of actual contracts in everyday life: the marriage contract, the employment contract, the prostitution contract and the new surrogacy contract. By bringing a feminist perspective to bear on the contradictions and paradoxes surrounding women and contract and the relation between the sexes, she is able to shed new light on the fundamental problems of freedom and subordination. The Sexual Contract will become a classic text in the politics of gender and will be of major interest to students of social and political theory and philosophy, women's studies, sociology and jurisprudence.

Carole Pateman is one of the leading political theorists writing today. This wide-ranging volume brings together for the first time a selection of her work on democratic theory and her feminist critique of mainstream political theory. The volume includes substantial discussions on questions of democracy and citizenship, including the construction of the concept of the political and complex, but largely unrecognized, problems surrounding women's participation and consent, and their relation to the social contract tradition. This work should be of interest to students and researchers in political theory, women's studies and sociology.

Carole Pateman is one of the leading political theorists writing today. This wide-ranging volume brings together for the first time a selection of her work on democratic theory and feminist criticism of mainstream political theory.The volume includes substantial discussions of problems of democracy, citizenship and the welfare state, including the largely unrecognized difficulties surrounding women's participation. The inclusion of essays from both a mainstream and feminist perspective provides concrete examples of the differences between these two approaches to democracy, to questions of consent and political obligation, and to the relationship between the private and public spheres.This scholarly and highly challenging work will be of interest to students and researchers in political theory, political science, women's studies and sociology.

Thirty years after its initial publication, The Sexual Contract remains a seminal work that challenges the standard view of the implications of the idea, deeply embedded in Western thought, that we should think of the state as if it were derived from an original contract. This idea lays the foundations for modern contract theory. In this book, leading feminist political theorist Carole Pateman revealed for the first time that we were only given half the story. The sexual contract that established men's patriarchal right over women has been glossed over, and no attention is paid to the problems that arise when women are excluded from the original contract but incorporated into the new contractual order. Pateman's critique of the traditional social contract continues to be relevant to discussions about the marriage contract and the employment contract, as well as newer cases, such as the welfare contract and the environmental contract. With an updated preface by the author, this edition speaks to ever-important questions about freedom and subordination.