The Political Value of Time

Elizabeth F. Cohen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, New York. She is the author of Semi-Citizenship in Democratic Politics (Cambridge, 2009), and other scholarship has featured in Citizenship Studies, Perspectives on Politics and Ethics and International Affairs. She has also published op-eds in newspapers including the Washington Post and Politico.

'Time is the ultimate scarce resource, defying every human attempt to defy its inevitable reckoning. As a result, time is intimately bound up with struggles over power and resources; indeed it often gives those struggles their meaning and point. Yet political theorists have paid scant attention to time. Elizabeth F. Cohen sets out to remedy this situation in her lucid and engaging new book. She develops a political economy of time and exhibits its implications for a host of debates about rights, power, and distribution. This is an important and novel contribution.' Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science, Yale University, Connecticut

• 1. Introduction; 2. The sovereign temporal boundaries around nation-states, populations, and citizenries; 3. Democracy, duration, and lived consent; 4. Time's political value; 5. The political economy of time; 6. Conclusion; Bibliography.