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2 books match the query 'Decency'
Decency and Difference
Humanity and the Global Challenge of Identity PoliticsSteven C. Roach
University of Michigan Press, 2019
Decency remains one of the most prevalent yet least understood terms in today’s political discourse. In evoking respect, kindness, courage, integrity, reason, and tolerance, it has long expressed an unquestioned duty and belief in promoting and protecting the dignity of all persons. Today this unquestioned belief is in crisis. Tribalism and identity politics have both hindered and threatened its moral stability and efficacy. Still, many continue to undertheorize its political character by isolating it from the effects of identity politics. Decency and Difference argues that decency is a primary source of the political tension that has long shaped the struggles for power, identity, and justice in the global arena. It distinguishes among basic, conservative, and liberal strands of decency to critically examine the many conflicting and competing applications of decency in global politics. Together these different strands reflect a long and uneven evolution from the British and American empires to a global network of justice. This powerful book exposes the gaps of decency and the disparate ways it is practiced, thus addressing the global challenge of configuring a diverse political ethic of decency.
The Politics of Decency
Peter Hennessy and Giles Edwards
Haus Publishing, 2026
A thoughtful examination of how to recenter decency in politics and public life, told through conversations between long-time historian and public servant Peter Hennessy and influential friends, decision makers, and leaders.
Having surveyed eighty years of the UK's political and constitutional journey, Hennessy prepares to bid farewell to public life. And he’s left with one thought: that the essential quality of decency needs to be placed—once again—back at the heart of public life and public discourse. But what does decency look like today, where does it spring from, and how might we all play a role in recentering it in public life? In The Politics of Decency, Hennessy considers such issues alongside a group of people who might pick up his baton. After inviting public servants, colleagues, and those he has long admired, along with younger voices from politics and public life, into his home for conversations about what decency means to them, he reflects on what they have shared with him. Hennessy’s interest in this question springs from a concern about constitutional proprieties, but these conversations range much further afield—from the constitution to service delivery, from schooling to social media. What he hears is both worrying and uplifting: a sense that there is a problem, a real commitment to tackle it, and ideas for how that might be done—and what role all of us can play in doing it.