Political Peoplehood The Roles of Values, Interests, and Identities |
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Author:
| Smith, Rogers M. |
ISBN: | 978-0-226-28509-2 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2015 |
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $32.00 |
Book Description:
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What makes a nation a people”? Throughout his career, Pulitzer Prize finalist Rogers M. Smith has argued that political peoplehood is a broad and fluid category in which citizenship or race or ethnicity are but one of many possible and overlapping forms. He has focused particularly on the narratives we tell about ourselves, the stories of peoplehood, and how and why they are so foundational in politics and in human life more broadly. Smith’s latest book develops...
More DescriptionWhat makes a nation a people”? Throughout his career, Pulitzer Prize finalist Rogers M. Smith has argued that political peoplehood is a broad and fluid category in which citizenship or race or ethnicity are but one of many possible and overlapping forms. He has focused particularly on the narratives we tell about ourselves, the stories of peoplehood, and how and why they are so foundational in politics and in human life more broadly. Smith’s latest book develops theoretical, empirical, and normative arguments that build on but go well beyond his earlier work. It illuminates the many political roles played by stories of peoplehood; the strengths and dangers of the specific stories that have shaped American politics; and the types of stories that peoples around the world should favor in the future. Exploring Peoplehood begins by advancing a model of how politics worksthe spiral of politics”and then explains the central role in that politics played by stories of peoplehood. It also analyzes the relationship of individuals’ personal stories to communal ones in order to address how far democratic leaders must be representative delegates rather than exceptional trustees for their constituents. It then uses this theoretical account of stories of peoplehood to illuminate a linked pair of major elements in American politics. Here Smith explores the revolutionary Americans’ adoption of universalistic individual rights rhetoric to define the aims of their new peoplehood, and how this has shaped America’s subsequent political development. He also analyzes the many, often opposing, roles that racial, gendered, and religious themes have played in defining who the American people are. The book’s final section turns to normative concerns. In making a case for flexible and multiple conceptions of peoplehood, Smith argues against claims for America’s exceptional superiority and in favor of inclusive American policies toward Mexican immigrants. More broadly Smith contends that greater recognition by current and former colonial powers of obligations to their colonies can aid in reducing global poverty and economic inequalities.