Overview

William E. Connolly, one of the best known and most important political theorists writing today, is a principal architect of the new pluralism. In this volume, leading thinkers in contemporary political theory and international relations provide a comprehensive investigation of the new pluralism, Connolly's contributions to it, and its influence on the fields of political theory and international relations. Together they trace the evolution of Connolly's ideas, illuminating his challenges to the old, conventional pluralist theory dominating American and British political science and sociology in the second half of the twentieth century. The contributors show how Connolly has continually revised his ideas about pluralism to take into account radical changes in global politics, incorporate new theories of cognition, and reflect on the centrality of religion in political conflict. They engage his arguments for an agonistic democracy in which all fundamentalisms become the objects of politicization, so that differences are not just tolerated but are productive of debate and the creative source of a politics of becoming.They also explore the implications of his work, often challenging his views to widen the reach of even his most recently developed theories. Connolly's new pluralism will provoke all citizens who refuse to subordinate their thinking to the regimes in which they reside, to religious authorities tied to the state, or to corporate interests tied to either. The New Pluralism concludes with an interview with Connolly in which he reflects on the evolution of his ideas and expands on his current work.

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9780822342465

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Reviews

A most welcome book. Due to his impressive and highly innovative string of writings, William Connolly has emerged as a leading, perhaps the leading, political theorist in the United States today. In our globalizing and multicultural world where cultures, ethnicities, and creeds are increasingly pushed together, his defense of a new and deep pluralism acquires an urgent timeliness. The contributors to the volume ably reveal both the wide range and the intense subtlety of Connolly's work. --Fred Dallmayr, Packey J. Dee Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

Author Information

David Campbell is Professor of Cultural and Political Geography at Durham University. He is the author of National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia and Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Morton Schoolman is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, Albany. He is the author of Reason and Horror: Critical Theory, Democracy, and Aesthetic Individuality and the editor of the series Modernity and Political Thought.

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