Лекция: Problem of political stability

In the beginning of XX century political systems have met new difficulties. In the conditions of fast changes the parliamentary forms of government were not able to react to new realities effectively: occurrence of new groups of the interests, arising conflicts. Interest to judgement of a problem of achievement of social balance, maintenance of balance of interests of various groups has increased. As the means, capable to restore dynamic balance in a society, the Italian sociologist V.Pareto considered political elite. From its point of view, evolution of a human society is history of blossoming and decline of elite which accepts all strategic to decisions on society development. Quality of the ruling elite, called to co-ordinate various groups of interests, in a solving measure defines also possibilities of development of a society.

M.Veber offered other ways of maintenance of stability. Without hoping for institutes of representative democracy (for example, parliament), he saw an exit in strengthening of the authoritative power of the charismatic leader which special talents distinguish, the valour, causing to it from the population absolute fidelity and belief. M.Veber has offered the theory плебисцитарной to democracy in which the charismatic leader leans against direct support of the people in struggle against amplifying and not accountable bureaucracy before anybody. The idea плебисцитарной democracies with the charismatic leader who would carry out a role of the independent and impartial arbitrator in all disputes, reflected for maintenance of unity of a society and its stability. Odes -

нако in practice this idea has led in Germany to an establishment of fascist dictatorship in the thirties XX century

From the end of World War II until 1971, when John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, political philosophy declined in the Anglo-American academic world, as analytic philosophers expressed skepticism about the possibility that normative judgments had cognitive content, and political science turned toward statistical methods and behavioralism. In continental Europe, on the other hand, the postwar decades saw a huge blossoming of political philosophy, with Marxism dominating the field. This was the time of Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser, and the victories of Mao Zedong in China and Fidel Castro in Cuba, as well as the events of May 1968 led to increased interest in revolutionary ideology, especially by the New Left. A number of continental European émigrés to Britain and the United States—including Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, Eric Voegelin and Judith Shklar—encouraged continued study in political philosophy in the Anglo-American world, but in the 1950s and 1960s they and their students remained at odds with the analytic establishment.

Communism remained an important focus especially during the 1950s and 1960s. Colonialism and racism were important issues that arose. In general, there was a marked trend towards a pragmatic approach to political issues, rather than a philosophical one. Much academic debate regarded one or both of two pragmatic topics: how (or whether) to apply utilitarianism to problems of political policy, or how (or whether) to apply economic models (such as rational choice theory) to political issues. The rise of feminism, LGBT social movements and the end of colonial rule and of the political exclusion of such minorities as African Americans and sexual minorities in the developed world has led to feminist, postcolonial, and multicultural thought becoming significant. This led to a challenge to the social contract by philosophers Charles W. Mills in his book The Racial Contract and Carole Patemen in her book The Sexual Contract that the social contract excluded persons of colour and women respectively.

In Anglo-American academic political philosophy, the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971 is considered a milestone. Rawls used a thought experiment, the original position, in which representative parties choose principles of justice for the basic structure of society from behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls also offered a criticism of utilitarian approaches to questions of political justice. Robert Nozick's 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which won a National Book Award, responded to Rawls from a libertarian perspective and gained academic respectability for libertarian viewpoints.

Contemporaneously with the rise of analytic ethics in Anglo-American thought, in Europe several new lines of philosophy directed at critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s. Most of these took elements of Marxist economic analysis, but combined them with a more cultural or ideological emphasis. Out of the Frankfurt School, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas combined Marxian and Freudian perspectives. Along somewhat different lines, a number of other continental thinkers—still largely influenced by Marxism—put new emphases on structuralism and on a «return to Hegel». Within the (post-) structuralist line (though mostly not taking that label) are thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Claude Lefort, and Jean Baudrillard. The Situationists were more influenced by Hegel; Guy Debord, in particular, moved a Marxist analysis of commodity fetishism to the realm of consumption, and looked at the relation between consumerism and dominant ideology formation.

Another debate developed around the (distinct) criticisms of liberal political theory made by Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor. The liberal-communitarian debate is often considered valuable for generating a new set of philosophical problems, rather than a profound and illuminating clash of perspectives.

There is fruitful interaction between political philosophers and international relations theorists. The rise of globalization has created the need for an international normative framework, and political theory has moved to fill the gap.

One of the most prominent subjects in recent political philosophy has been the theory of deliberative democracy. The seminal work is by Jurgen Habermas in Germany but the most extensive literature has been in English, led by theorists such as Jane Mansbridge, Joshua Cohen, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson.