Politics against Domination

Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and the Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale

(Harvard University Press)

In this book, Ian Shapiro contends that the overriding purpose of politics should be to combat domination, and he shows how to put resistance to domination into practice at home and abroad.

Shapiro spells out the implications for pressing debates about electoral systems, independent courts, money in politics, minimum wages, and the vulnerabilities of minorities. He takes up debates over international institutions and world government, intervention to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing, and the challenges of fostering democracy abroad. Offering assessments of politics and power, he makes a case that we can reasonably hope to devise ways to combat domination and act on them. Gleaning insights from the battle against slavery, the creation of modern welfare states, the civil rights movement, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, and the worldwide campaign against sweatshops, among other sources, Shapiro explains the ingredients of effective coalitions for political change and how best to press them into the service of resisting domination.