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This paper assesses the special difficulties faced by a liberal democratic system which seeks to maintain its democratic credentials when governing a culturally diverse society. The argument focuses upon the analysis of cultural pluralism developed in two recent pieces of Bhikhu Parekh. After clarifying the nature of Parekh's culturally pluralistic society, the cultural specificity of liberal democracy is examined Finally, Parekh's attempt to reconcile the two through ‘operative public values’ is shown to be inadequate in such a manner that the ability of a liberal democratic system to ever bring lasting well‐being in a situation of cultural diversity is thrown into doubt.

The article presents a model of performative agency in capitalist societies. The first section reconsiders the problem of third-dimensional power as developed by Steven Lukes, focusing on the relationships between universal human needs and social forms. The second section uses the concepts of the ‘self’, ‘I’ and ‘person’ to characterize the relationships between human nature, affect, individual alienation, social institutions and personal judgement. Alienation is argued to be inherent in human agency, rather than being solely created by capitalism. The next section applies this analysis within an agonal theory of civil society that is driven by the individual’s performative participation in associations that compete within institutional settings. Finally the article considers the political ramifications of this model, rejecting contemporary constitutionalist approaches in favour of a revised form of pluralist associationalism. Throughout, the article warns of the dangerous marginalization of emotions (or ‘affect’) by excessively self-conscious, rationalist approaches such as Mead’s social theory, liberal universalism and even some performative theories.

PurposeThe paper establishes that Edward Caird developed a distinctive form of liberal Hegelianism out of his critical responses to Kant, the romantic tradition of Rousseau, Goethe and Wordsworth and indeed Hegel himself. Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a philosophical reconstruction of Caird's social economics that is based on a close reading of a very wide range of Caird's writings including his recently published lectures on social ethics and political economy. FindingsCaird's theory of historical development underpinned his writings on social economics. One of his greatest debts in this regard was to his interpretation of the romantics, which introduced a rich conception of higher human capacities into his critical analysis of capitalism. When combined with his critique of Kantian formalism, this led Caird towards Hegel. Yet, Caird's concerns regarding corporatism's stultifying tendencies led him to develop a dynamic form of liberal Hegelianism, which placed far greater trust than had Hegel in the ability of free conscientious citizens to restructure and enrich established social categories (classes, professions, gender roles and so on) and the system of nations which those categories helped to constitute. Practical implicationsIf Caird's liberal Hegelianism were to be adopted today, we could live in much freer, fairer and enriching communities than we do at present. Originality/valueEdward Caird has been wrongly neglected in intellectual histories of Anglo-American political theory, and while his writings on Kant's critical philosophy have received some scholarly attention, his critique of romanticism has never received the attention it deserves. This also draws on manuscripts that have been published only within the past five years, having been edited for the first time by the author of this paper.

This article develops and defends a performative conception of historical re-enactment as a fruitful method by which intellectual historians can interpret texts. Specifically, it argues that, in order to understand properly any given text, the intellectual historian should re-enact the performative activities of the writer of that text. The first section analyses one of the most influential and powerful theories of historical re-enactment, namely that found in the later writings of Robin George Collingwood. Drawing on Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblances, certain key insights are identified in Collingwood's theory. Crucially, certain limitations are also stressed. The second section argues that an alternative theory of re-enactment can be developed by drawing on Judith Butler's theory of "performativity". The interpretative implications of a writer's genre, mode of experience, presuppositions, deliberate inventiveness and unintended failures are highlighted. The particularized nature of texts is shown to problematize the writing of unilinear histories of written debates. The article concludes by summarizing briefly the key methodological implications of performative re-enactment as they have been identified in the body of the article.