Freedom of Association

Book 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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691057591
• ISBN13: 9780691057590
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Reviving interest in an under-studied subject

For a long time the theoretical literature on freedom of association was mostly limited to labor unions. Since the fall of Communism and the rise of the neo-Tocquevillean civil society literature, there has been much more attention to voluntary associations in general, but still too little written from the perspectives of political or moral philosophy. This very strong collection of essays-- along with Nancy Rosenblum's book _Membership and Morals_, which it complements nicely-- helps to rememdy that. Some of the leading political theorists in the English-speaking world discuss and debate both the value of associations for individuals and their value for democracy. Recurrent topics include the Supreme Court's decision denying that the Jaycees had a constitutional right to exclude women; whether the state ought to subsidize voluntary associations or take a laissez-faire approach; and whether religious associations are entitled to special legal protection. While the subjects of individual chapters range from the rights of trade unions to the claims of ethnic associations to the civic value of city life, there is a substantial sense that the contributors are in conversation with one another. This is in part because they were; the essays were written over a two -year period for a seminar series at Princeton University, where most of the contributors were either visiting or permanent faculty. This book should be easily accessible to those with some education in law, philosophy, or political science, and will be of great interest to those concerned with associational life in a liberal democracy.