Freedom of Association / Edition 1

by Amy Gutmann

Overview

Americans are joiners. They are members of churches, fraternal and sororal orders, sports leagues, community centers, parent-teacher associations, professional associations, residential associations, literary societies, national and international charities, and service organizations of seemingly all sorts. Social scientists are engaged in a lively argument about whether decreasing proportions of Americans over the past several decades have been joining secondary associations, but no one disputes that freedom of association remains a fundamental personal and political value in the United States. "Nothing," Alexis de Tocqueville argued, "deserves more attention." Yet the value and limits of free association in the United States have not received the attention they deserve. Why is freedom of association valuable for the lives of individuals? What does it contribute to the life of a liberal democracy? This volume explores the individual and civic values of associational freedom in a liberal democracy, as well as the moral and constitutional limits of claims to associational freedom.


Beginning with an introductory essay on freedom of association by Amy Gutmann, the first part of this timely volume includes essays on individual rights of association by George Kateb, Michael Walzer, Kent Greenawalt, and Nancy Rosenblum, and the second part includes essays on civic values of association by Will Kymlicka, Yael Tamir, Daniel A. Bell, Sam Fleischacker, Alan Ryan, and Stuart White.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691057590
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/23/1998
Series:	The University Center for Human Values Series , #17
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Amy Gutmann is Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor and founding director of the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Her books include Democratic Education and, with Anthony Appiah, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (both books available from Princeton) and, with Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Ch. 1 Freedom of Association: An Introductory Essay 3

Pt. I Individual Values of Association

Ch. 2 The Value of Association 35

Ch. 3 On Involuntary Association 64

Ch. 4 Compelled Association: Public Standing, Self-Respect, and the Dynamic of Exclusion 75

Ch. 5 Freedom of Association and Religious Association 109

Ch. 6 Rights, Reasons, and Freedom of Association 145

Pt. II Civic Values of Association

Ch. 7 Ethnic Associations and Democratic Citizenship 177

Ch. 8 Revisiting the Civic Sphere 214

Ch. 9 Civil Society versus Civic Virtue 239

Ch. 10 Insignificant Communities 273

Ch. 11 The City as a Site for Free Association 314

Ch. 12 Trade Unionism in a Liberal State 330

List of Contributors

Index

What People are Saying About This

Galston

This collection of essays is the best one-volume introduction to a timely topic: the nature, purposes, moral justifications of (and limitations on) freedom of association in liberal democracies. The contributors link broad philosophical questions to specific practical issues in ways that both philosophers and readers with legal and policy concerns will find illuminating.
— William A. Galston, Director, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland

From the Publisher

"This collection of essays is the best one-volume introduction to a timely topic: the nature, purposes, moral justifications of (and limitations on) freedom of association in liberal democracies. The contributors link broad philosophical questions to specific practical issues in ways that both philosophers and readers with legal and policy concerns will find illuminating."—William A. Galston, Director, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland

Editorial Reviews

"Freedom of Association is exemplary in the consistently high quality and thematic continuity of the contributions."—-Margaret Kohn, Political Theory

From the Publisher

Freedom of Association is exemplary in the consistently high quality and thematic continuity of the contributions.

Political Theory - Margaret Kohn

Freedom of Association is exemplary in the consistently high quality and thematic continuity of the contributions.
— Margaret Kohn

Political Theory