Books in the Issues in Political Theory series

What are human rights? She asks whether or not human rights can be said to be universal, and whether human rights can encompass global justice, environmental rights and global security for future generations.

This wide-ranging text identifies and assesses the main conceptions of democracy from participationist to elitist. It proceeds to consider in detail a range of key issues in democratic theory in relation to which these conceptions can be distinguished.

The varied grounds and implications of claiming rights to liberties, socio-economic rights and democratic rights are considered and the book concludes with an examination of the theoretical objections and the practical difficulties that proponents of rights have to confront.

The new edition of this classic text provides a comprehensive introduction to the concept of legitimacy as applied to political systems. Now addressing the issue of legitimacy beyond the state, the book also includes a new introduction and two major additional chapters which update the argument in the light of developments and debates.

The substantially revised third edition of this widely-used text introduces nine major theoretical approaches and their key protagonists, including a new chapter on global justice, and assesses their ability to generate clear, consistent and illuminating accounts of justice as a distinctive social, political and legal value.

How should we understand the relationship between citizens and governments, and what are the obligations of citizens? In this substantially revised new edition of an influential text, John Horton challenges dominant theories by offering an 'associative' account focusing particularly on what it is to be a member of a political community.