Conceptualizing Politics: An Introduction to Political Philosophy

Politics is hugely complex. Some try to reduce its complexity by examining it through an ideological worldview, a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula or a quantitative examination of as many 'facts' as possible. Yet politics cannot be adequately handled as if it were made of cells and particles: ideological views are oversimplifying and sometimes dangerous. Politics is not simply a moral matter, nor political philosophy a subdivision of moral philosophy. This book is devised as a basic conceptual lexicon for all those who want to understand what politics is, how it works and how it changes or fails to change. Key concepts such as power, conflict, legitimacy and order are clearly defined and their interplay in the state, interstate and global level explored. Principles such as liberty, equality, justice and solidarity are discussed in the context of the political choices confronting us.

This compact and systematic introduction to the categories needed to grasp the fundamentals of politics will appeal to readers who want to gain a firmer grasp on the workings of politics, as well as to scholars and students of philosophy, political science and history.

Furio Cerutti is professor emeritus of political philosophy at the University of Florence. Ten years of his academic career were spent at the Universities of Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main and later at Harvard (Law School and later Center for European Studies). He has also been a visiting professor at China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing; London School of Economics; Paris 8; Scuola superiore Université de Sant’Anna, Pisa; Stanford University in Florence.

Cerutti’s two research topics are the theory of politics after modernity (Global Challenges for Leviathan: A Political Philosophy of Nuclear Weapons and Global Warming, 2007; 全球治理:挑战与趋势 (Global Governance:Challenges and Trends), 2014) and the theory of political identity and legitimacy, with a focus on the question of European identity (The Search for a European Identity: Values, Policies and Legitimacy of the European Union, 2008; Debating Political Identity and Legitimacy in the European Union, 2011, both coedited and published by Routledge in the Garnet book series). He is now working on the present significance of the ‘future’ in political debate and decision-making.