Manon Westphal - Böcker

This book focuses on the idea of a modus vivendi as a way of governing political life and addressing problems characterized by pluralism or deep-rooted diversity.

Interest in compromise has recently grown both in public and scholarly debates. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic. This volume fills this gap by bringing together contributions from various relevant disciplines. They show that compromise has been a central technique to regulate social and political conflicts in different contexts. In a compromise the conflicting parties create an agreement by making mutual concessions, but do not give up their original claims. Therein lies the capacity of compromise to prevent or end escalated conflicts even in situations in which disagreements cannot be transformed into a consensus. In addition to theoretical investigations of the concept, the volume includes case studies on Europe in the Middle Ages, in the 19th and 20th centuries, and on pre-modern and contemporary Japan. The overarching question is about the preconditions of compromises. The authors examine the role of compromise in diplomacy, politics, trade, economics, and everyday life. Together they generate a comprehensive picture of the capacities and limitations of compromise in the past and today.

This book focuses on the idea of a modus vivendi as a way of governing political life and addressing problems characterized by pluralism or deep-rooted diversity. The individual essays illustrate both the merits and the limitations of a political theory of modus vivendi; how it might be interpreted and developed; specific challenges entailed by articulating it in a convincing form; what its institutional implications might be; and how it relates to other seminal issues and concepts in political theory; such as legitimacy, toleration, the social contract, etc. The book makes a significant contribution to the discussion on the scope and limits of liberal political theory, and on how to deal politically with deep-rooted diversity.