Globalizing Political Theory

Globalizing Political Theory is guided by the need to understand political theory as deeply embedded in local networks of power, identity, and structure, and to examine how these networks converge and diverge with the global. With the help of this book, students of political theory no longer need to learn about ideas in a vacuum with little or no attention paid to how such ideas are responses to varying local political problems in different places, times, and contexts.

Key features include:

• Central Conceptual Framework: Introducing readers to what it means to “globalize” political theory and to move beyond the traditional western canon and actively engage with a multiplicity of perspectives.
• Organization: Focused on key topics essential for an introductory class aimed at both globalizing political theory and showing how political theory itself is a globalizing activity.
• Themes: Colonialism and Empire; Gender and Sexuality; Religion and Secularism; Marxism, Socialism, and Globalization; Democracy and Protest; and Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity.
• Pedagogy: Each chapter features theoretical concepts and definitions, political and historical context, key authors and biographical context, textual evidence and exegesis from the foundational texts in that thematic area, a list of discussion questions, and a list of resources for further reading.

Committed to a multiplicity of perspectives and an active engagement between the global and the local, Globalizing Political Theory connects directly with undergraduate and graduate-level courses in political theory, global political theory, and non-western political thought.

Smita A. Rahman is the Johnson Family University Professor of Political Science at DePauw University where she teaches courses in modern, contemporary, and Islamic political thought. Her research interests lie at the intersection of contemporary and comparative political theory. In particular, she is interested in exploring how foundational concepts in political theory rupture and become contested in a globalized world of difference.

Katherine A. Gordy is a Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where she teaches courses in political theory and Latin American Studies. Her specific research and teaching interests are comparative political theory (Latin American and Caribbean political thought), critical theory, and theories of history and ideology.

Shirin S. Deylami is a Professor of Political Science and affiliate faculty in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Western Washington University, where she teaches courses in contemporary political theory, feminist theory, and Islamic political thought. Her research interests are at the intersection of feminist theory and Islam with particular interest in the way debates about Muslim women’s identity and freedom affect Islamic and Western conceptions of self and other.