A Political Theory of Territory

A Political Theory of Territory PDF Author: Margaret Moore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190222255
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Our world is currently divided into territorial states that resist all attempts to change their borders. But what entitles a state, or the people it represents, to assume monopoly control over a particular piece of the Earth's surface? Why are they allowed to prevent others from entering? What if two or more states, or two or more groups of people, claim the same piece of land? Political philosophy, which has had a great deal to say about the relationship between state and citizen, has largely ignored these questions about territory. This book provides answers. It justifies the idea of territory itself in terms of the moral value of political self-determination; it also justifies, within limits, those elements that we normally associate with territorial rights: rights of jurisdiction, rights over resources, right to control borders and so on. The book offers normative guidance over a number of important issues facing us today, all of which involve territory and territorial rights, but which are currently dealt with by ad hoc reasoning: disputes over resources; disputes over boundaries, oceans, unoccupied islands, and the frozen Arctic; disputes rooted in historical injustices with regard to land; secessionist conflicts; and irredentist conflicts. In a world in which there is continued pressure on borders and control over resources, from prospective migrants and from the desperate poor, and no coherent theory of territory to think through these problems, this book offers an original, systematic, and sophisticated theory of why territory matters, who has rights over territory, and the scope and limits of these rights.

A Political Theory of Territory

A Political Theory of Territory PDF Author: Margaret Moore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190222255
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book

Book Description
Our world is currently divided into territorial states that resist all attempts to change their borders. But what entitles a state, or the people it represents, to assume monopoly control over a particular piece of the Earth's surface? Why are they allowed to prevent others from entering? What if two or more states, or two or more groups of people, claim the same piece of land? Political philosophy, which has had a great deal to say about the relationship between state and citizen, has largely ignored these questions about territory. This book provides answers. It justifies the idea of territory itself in terms of the moral value of political self-determination; it also justifies, within limits, those elements that we normally associate with territorial rights: rights of jurisdiction, rights over resources, right to control borders and so on. The book offers normative guidance over a number of important issues facing us today, all of which involve territory and territorial rights, but which are currently dealt with by ad hoc reasoning: disputes over resources; disputes over boundaries, oceans, unoccupied islands, and the frozen Arctic; disputes rooted in historical injustices with regard to land; secessionist conflicts; and irredentist conflicts. In a world in which there is continued pressure on borders and control over resources, from prospective migrants and from the desperate poor, and no coherent theory of territory to think through these problems, this book offers an original, systematic, and sophisticated theory of why territory matters, who has rights over territory, and the scope and limits of these rights.

Land, Conflict, and Justice

Land, Conflict, and Justice PDF Author: Avery Kolers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521516773
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
in territory and justice." --Book Jacket.

A Political Theory of Territory

A Political Theory of Territory PDF Author: Margaret Moore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190845791
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Margaret Moore attempts here to offer a comprehensive normative theory of territory. The book provides an account both of the nature of rights to territory and of the nature of the right-holder, considering the arguments that might justify state territory as well as the appropriate relationship between the state, the people, and the land implied by that justificatory argument. After setting out the basics of the theory in the initial chapters, the author then compares her view to the main competing rival views (cultural nationalist and statist) and explains how her view handles the issues of boundary setting, corrective justice, natural resources, immigration and defensive rights. The volume provides the reader with a clear sense both of the existing state of the philosophical literature on territorial rights and of Moore's own views

Territorial Sovereignty

Territorial Sovereignty PDF Author: Anna Stilz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198833539
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration offers a qualified defense of a territorial states-system. It argues that three core values-occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination-are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all the sovereignty rights states currently claim, and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states' sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people's preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and also facilitates its people's collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restriction as to approach or subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka and David Miller.

The Ethics of Nationalism

The Ethics of Nationalism PDF Author: Margaret Moore
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191522880
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The Ethics of Nationalism blends a philosophical discussion of the ethical merits and limits of nationalism with a detailed understanding of nationalist aspirations and a variety of national conflict zones. The author discusses the controversial and contemporary issues of rights of secession, the policies of the state in privileging a particular national group, the kinds of accommodations of minority national, and multi cultural identity groups that are justifiable and appropriate. These insights are then applied to two central nationalist aspirations: nation-building and national self-determination projects. The discussion of nation-building projects invloves a theory of the appropriate policies and principles that the state should follow in giving preferences to a particular national group. The discussion of national self-determination projets analyses the kind of prodedual right to secession that should be institutionalized in domestic constitutions or international law, and the psooibilities for accomodation rival caims to national recognition in the changing international order.

The Birth of Territory

The Birth of Territory PDF Author: Stuart Elden
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022604128X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
Political theory professor Stuart Elden explores the history of land ownership and control from the ancient to the modern world in The Birth of Territory. Territory is one of the central political concepts of the modern world and, indeed, functions as the primary way the world is divided and controlled politically. Yet territory has not received the critical attention afforded to other crucial concepts such as sovereignty, rights, and justice. While territory continues to matter politically, and territorial disputes and arrangements are studied in detail, the concept of territory itself is often neglected today. Where did the idea of exclusive ownership of a portion of the earth’s surface come from, and what kinds of complexities are hidden behind that seemingly straightforward definition? The Birth of Territory provides a detailed account of the emergence of territory within Western political thought. Looking at ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and early modern thought, Stuart Elden examines the evolution of the concept of territory from ancient Greece to the seventeenth century to determine how we arrived at our contemporary understanding. Elden addresses a range of historical, political, and literary texts and practices, as well as a number of key players—historians, poets, philosophers, theologians, and secular political theorists—and in doing so sheds new light on the way the world came to be ordered and how the earth’s surface is divided, controlled, and administered. “The Birth of Territory is an outstanding scholarly achievement . . . a book that already promises to become a ‘classic’ in geography, together with very few others published in the past decades.” —Political Geography “An impressive feat of erudition.” —American Historical Review

Territorial Rights

Territorial Rights PDF Author: Tamar Meisels
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402038232
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Liberal defences of nationalism have become prevalent since the mid-1980’s. Curiously, they have largely neglected the fact that nationalism is primarily about land. Should liberals throw up their hands in despair when confronting conflicting claims stemming from incommensurable national narratives and holy texts? Should they dismiss conflicting demands that stem solely from particular cultures, religions and mythologies in favour of a supposedly neutral set of guidelines? Does history matter? Should ancient injustices interest us today? Should we care who reached the territory first and who were its prior inhabitants? Should principles of utility play a part in resolving territorial disputes? Was John Locke right to argue that the utilisation of land counts in favour of its acquisition? And should Western style settlement projects work in favour or against a nation’s territorial demands? When and how should principles of equality and equal distribution come into play? Territorial Rights examines the generic types of territorial claims customarily put forward by national groups as justification for their territorial demands, within the framework of what has come to be known as ‘liberal nationalism’. The final outcome is a multifarious theory on the ethics of territorial boundaries that supplies a workable set of guidelines for evaluating territorial disputes from a liberal-national perspective, and offers a common ground for discussion (including disagreement) and for the mediation of claims.

On Borders

On Borders PDF Author: Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190074221
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
When are borders justified? Who has a right to control them? Where should they be drawn? Today people think of borders as an island's shores. Just as beaches delimit a castaway's realm, so borders define the edges of a territory, occupied by a unified people, to whom the land legitimately belongs. Hence a territory is legitimate only if it belongs to a people unified by a civic identity. Sadly, this Desert Island Model of territorial politics forces us to choose. If we want territories, then we can either have democratic legitimacy, or inclusion of different civic identities--but not both. The resulting politics creates mass xenophobia, migrant-bashing, hoarding of natural resources, and border walls. To escape all this, On Borders presents an alternative model. Drawing on an intellectual tradition concerned with how land and climate shape institutions, it argues that we should not see territories as pieces of property owned by identity groups. Instead, we should see them as watersheds: as interconnected systems where institutions, people, the biota, and the land together create overlapping civic duties and relations, what the book calls place-specific duties. This Watershed Model argues that borders are justified when they allow us to fulfill those duties; that border-control rights spring from internationally-agreed conventions--not from internal legitimacy; that borders should be governed cooperatively by the neighboring states and the states system; and that border redrawing should be done with environmental conservation in mind. The book explores how this model undoes the exclusionary politics of desert islands.

Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy

Indivisible Territory and the Politics of Legitimacy PDF Author: Stacie E. Goddard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052143985X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book challenges the conventional wisdom that territorial conflicts in Jerusalem and Northern Ireland were inevitable. Stacie Goddard's research shows that it was radical political rhetoric, and not ancient hatreds, that rendered these territories indivisible, preventing negotiation and compromise and leading to violence and war.

A Political Theory of Territory

A Political Theory of Territory PDF Author: Margaret Moore (Professor in Political Theory)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780190222260
Category : Jurisdiction, Territorial
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This title offers a political self-determination theory of territory. Territorial disputes are at the centre of some of the most intractable controversies facing us today but it is also one of the most under-theorised concepts that we rely on. Most work in political philosophy, international relations, political science, and law take for granted the territorial imperative (that we need states, and states are necessarily territorial); yet, this book argues, territory itself requires a defence.