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The State

Online ISBN:
9780691244396
Print ISBN:
9780691182209
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Book

The State

Philip Pettit
Philip Pettit
Princeton University / Australian National University
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Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
14 March 2023
Online ISBN:
9780691244396
Print ISBN:
9780691182209
Publisher:
Princeton University Press

Abstract

The future of our species depends on the state. Can states resist corporate capture, religious zealotry, and nationalist mania? Can they find a way to work together so that the earth heals and its peoples prosper? Or is the state just not up to the task? This book examines the nature of the state and its capacity to serve goals like peace and justice within and beyond its borders. In doing so, the book breaks new ground by making the state the focus of political theory—with implications for economic, legal, and social theory—and presents a persuasive, historically informed image of an institution that lies at the center of our lives. Offering an account that is more realist than utopian, the book starts from the function the polity is meant to serve, looks at how it can best discharge that function, and explores its ability to engage beneficially in the life of its citizens. This enables the book to identify an ideal of statehood that is a precondition of justice. Only if states approximate this functional ideal will they be able to deal with the perennial problems of extreme poverty and bitter discord as well as the challenges that loom over the coming centuries, including climate change, population growth, and nuclear arms.

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