bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Democracy
Authors: Gregory Eric 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter examines Reinhold Niebuhr’s anti-utopian defence of democracy, conceived primarily as a political arrangement marked by balance of power, rule by the governed, and a liberal constitutional order. Niebuhr’s democracy, however, is both a procedural form of government and a substantial ethical commitment. His essayistic style traversed disciplines in search of a pragmatic public philosophy that might navigate between hope and despair given inevitable conflict in democratic life. Pregnant with broader claims of morality and theology, his dialectical method crystallizes deep patterns of thought in what came to be known as his Christian Realism. The chapter places these views in historical context and notes their critical reception, highlighting debts to Augustinian, Marxist, Calvinist, and Kantian traditions. But the focus is normative and contemporary. Renewed questions about the uncertain prospects of democracy and its challenges suggest an opportunity to assess what is living and what is dead in Niebuhr’s influential account.
Violence, Pacifism, and the Use of Force
Authors: Davis G. Scott 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter lays out the historical development of Niebuhr’s thought on war and peace in the context of American history and religious thought. It argues that in his early thought he accepts the received wisdom concerning early Christian non-violence, a position that led him to join the “Fellowship of Reconciliation” in 1928. With the Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s, however, his position began to shift in ways captured in his early exchange with his brother, H. Richard Niebuhr. By the time he delivered the Gifford Lectures, at the very beginning of the Second World War, he has rejected pacifism and begun to develop the positions associated with ‘Christian Realism’. This extended into the early period of nuclear deterrence, though with increasing qualification. By the early 1960s, the perceived lack of restraint led Paul Ramsey to turn to the Catholic just war tradition to articulate a Reformation doctrine of principled love that could clarify which uses of force were acceptable and which had to be rejected. The tradition of Niebuhr persists, however, in such thinkers as John Carlson, whose Christian realist account of war and peace draws directly from Niebuhr and his legacy.
Economic Justice
Authors: Snarr C. Melissa 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter discusses the history and contemporary relevance of Reinhold Niebuhr’s work on economic justice with explicit attention to its gendered and raced dynamics. From his early focus on state socialism and Marxist theory to his later criticism of Marxist religion and eventual embrace of New Deal-style reforms, Niebuhr evolved from a tragic to ironic view of history that emphasized the interplay of freedom, liberty, and justice. While Niebuhr under-analysed the gendered and raced dynamics of the economy that could have made more complex his theorizing of the relationship between private and public morality, he still offers vital lessons for our escalating economic inequality. Attending to how wealth disparity creates unbalanced social power and undermines political democracy, understanding that power must meet power for social change, and realizing that all efforts towards justice are provisional could provide guidance in our contemporary efforts towards greater economic democracy.
Nature and Environment
Authors: Balthrop-Lewis Alda 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter treats Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought on nature and environment in an effort to evaluate its utility for contemporary environmental politics and ethics. Like a small but growing group of Niebuhrian environmental ethicists, the chapter finds in Niebuhr’s thought both peril and promise. Niebuhr’s anthropological focus leaves him inattentive to the ethical status of the more-than-human world, the intrinsic value of which is a premise for much contemporary environmental ethics and politics. Nonetheless, Niebuhr’s insistence on the social nature of sin and the exigencies of democratic political power should have a more central place in contemporary thinking about the politics of nature and environment. The chapter makes this argument by way of attention to a few themes in Niebuhr’s thought, primarily nuclear science, nature, and industry.
Racial Justice
Authors: West Traci C. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
Reinhold Niebuhr’s ideas invite us to confront problems of racial justice. Probing questions of method that consider whiteness and white supremacy in US-American life yields guidance for identifying how Christian ethics produces useful approaches to questions of racial justice. Examples from Reinhold Niebuhr’s twentieth-century Christian ethics commentaries on white dominance and his methodological assumptions spark an exploration of how related arguments in twenty-first century Christian ethics and theology analyses of white dominance can contribute. Besides method, concrete racist attitudes and practices in need of Christian ethics disruption are revealed in the politics of immigration seen in Niebuhr’s 1920s claims about German immigrant ethnic identity struggles and addressed by current Christian ethicists on twenty-first-century opposition to welcoming impoverished, migrant brown peoples into the United States.
American Foreign Policy
Authors: Warren Heather A. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
Reinhold Niebuhr’s ability to analyse the most fundamental aspects of human existence and reckon with them on the grandest scale has remained relevant for American foreign policy since the 1930s. In the contexts of the interwar years, the Second World War, the immediate post-war world, and the Cold War, Niebuhr called attention to the importance of justice, pride, national interest, and prudence in deliberations about the United States’ responsibilities in an interdependent world that faced the menace of communism. The Irony of American History (1952) was his extended examination of America in the new international system, and it included recommendations to guide the making of American foreign policy. Niebuhr’s principles provide insight into US successes and failures in the Vietnam, Bosnian, and Gulf Wars.
Nations and Nationalism
Authors: Paeth Scott 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter examines the development of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thoughts on nationalism. Over the course of his lifetime, Niebuhr continually returned to the question of nationalism as a factor in international relations, revising his understanding in light of the particular circumstances confronting the United States and the global community. His early writings on German Americanism yielded to a more sceptical analysis of nationalism as a manifestation of collective egoism, but one which could nevertheless provide important resources to human communities. The threat of Fascist nationalism in the 1930s caused him to yet again revise his understanding of nationalism, as a revitalized form of democratic nationalism became necessary to confront it. The Cold War presented the context for Niebuhr’s mature reflection on the subject, advocating for a form of chastened nationalism, which was aware of both its responsibility to confront evil in the world, as well as its own tendencies towards self-delusion and the abuse of power.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Authors: Hauerwas Stanley 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
Despite his sharp criticism of Niebuhr in With the Grain of the Universe, the author of this chapter has a high estimate of Niebuhr’s legacy and of the Jamesian pragmatism that characterizes Niebuhr’s work as a whole. Langdon Gilkey offers a valuable record of the impact of Niebuhr’s energy and imagination on his contemporaries. His insights are compelling and carefully formulated, but they are often separable from the theological framework in which he located them. The continuing power of his insights into sin as pride and sensuality, and his understanding of the relationships between democracy and justice should not obscure the comparative absence of God and the Church from his theology.
The Ironies of Proximate Justice
Authors: Stout Jeffrey 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
History, Reinhold Niebuhr taught, is ironic and often tragic. Idealism makes things worse when put into practice. This side of God’s kingdom, we should approximate justice insofar as we can, but not too single-mindedly. Thinking that justice entails commitment to absolute principles is an idealistic mistake. Niebuhr’s outlook has now held sway in high places for nearly a century, and this chapter argues that it has not worked out well in practice. Tragic choices, supreme emergencies, and lame excuses on the part of officials appear to be multiplying. Leaders first became harder to trust and then downright antinomian. Accountability has atrophied. We have entered an age of permanent war. Principles have more social value than Niebuhr thought.
The 1950s: The Ironies of American Power
Authors: Finstuen Andrew 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
In the 1950s, Reinhold Niebuhr advanced a theology of history rooted in his theology of the Cross. From that vantage point, he challenged conventional, dualistic interpretations of the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and America’s post-Second World War economic and technological prominence. While he favoured democracy over communism, African American rights over segregation, and abundance over scarcity, he rejected what he thought of as the human pretension to simplify such complex historical phenomena by appeals to American goodness. Instead Niebuhr saw the logic of the Cross as the surest route for navigating the confusion and ironies of history while also creating the conditions for greater forms of justice in history.
The Art of Imperial Politics and the Interminable Frustrations of History
Authors: Bew John 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This short chapter considers the renewed interest in Niebuhr’s legacy from the middle part of the first decade of the twenty-first century, through the presidency of Barack Obama and into the era of Donald Trump, following his victory in the 2016 presidential election. It places what might be called the Niebuhrian ‘world view’—understood as Christian theology set upon an international historical canvas—against the backdrop of the so-called ‘crisis of world order’, about which much has been written since 2014. It argues that Niebuhr plays a similar role in American intellectual life as Edmund Burke has done in Britain and that his ideas continue to provide a useful guide to the world today.
Two Students
Authors: Lovin Robin 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
Reinhold Niebuhr’s influence extended beyond his own prolific writings and his role as a public intellectual through students who were shaped by their encounters with him during his long career as a teacher at Union Theological Seminary. In his classes, he taught many students who went on to careers in ministry and others who became scholars and writers. He was also a powerful influence on everyone at Union through his sermons in the chapel, and many remembered informal gatherings that Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr hosted in their home. While it is difficult to formulate meaningful generalizations about so many students, two in particular remind us of the scope of Niebuhr’s influence through his teaching: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) and Kiyoko Takeda (1917–2018).
What Is Speech? The Question of Coverage
Authors: Schauer Frederick 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter assesses the question of coverage of the right to freedom of speech. Beneath the language and complexities of the question of coverage, and apart from the misleading question, ‘what is speech?’, is a much simpler question that is necessarily the first question always to be asked: ‘is this a free speech dispute?’. The question of coverage is this question. At times the answer will be determined by an authoritative text. At times it will be answered by examining the underlying point of a distinct and weighty principle of free speech. And at times the answer will be so obviously ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that one may not even recognize that the question is there. But the question, whether explicit or implicit, is always there. Labelling the question as the question of coverage, and distinguishing between coverage and protection, brings to the surface a component that is necessarily part of addressing any free speech issue and any free speech dispute.
Proportionality and Limitations on Freedom of Speech
Authors: Webber Grégoire 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter studies the depth of judicial and scholarly consensus respecting the principle of proportionality and offers an expository and critical account of proportionality analysis. The fact of disagreement between and within jurisdictions need not deny that the principle of proportionality has merit. However, it does put in doubt the confident claims by some proponents that proportionality is ‘essential’, ‘indispensable’, and ‘unavoidable’ and that, when it comes to rights, it ‘is all and only about proportionality’. To explore these thoughts, and to demonstrate how much of the US debates from the 1950s and 1960s remain apposite today, the chapter explores the appeal of proportionality and balancing for the adjudication of freedom of expression claims and then reviews proportionality’s four evaluations. It concludes by considering the idea that freedom of expression cannot be absolute. It is an idea that is oft-repeated, but one that is based on a mistaken premise.
Freedom of Speech in International Law
Authors: Hamilton Michael 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter traces the broad contours of the right to freedom of speech as it has evolved in international law, principally under Article 19(2) of the 1996 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR or ‘the Covenant’). Any speech protective principles deriving from the international jurisprudence are qualified by the following factors: the contextual contingency of the value of speech, the inherently limited reach of international scrutiny, the changing nature of the marketplace, and emerging forms of censorship. The chapter then outlines the key human rights treaty protections for freedom of speech, before further exploring the scope of the right. It examines the permissible grounds for speech restriction, highlighting two contested categories of speech—namely, incitement to hatred and glorification of terrorism—where international law not only concedes the low value of such speech, but specifically mandates its prohibition in domestic law. States that introduce broadly framed speech restrictions may claim to be acting in satisfaction of this prohibitory requirement. In consequence, the intensity of any ensuing international scrutiny will inevitably be substantially reduced.
Positive Free Speech: A Democratic Freedom
Authors: Kenyon Andrew T. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter explores the positive structural dimensions of the freedom of speech by using a democratic free speech rationale. While far from the only aspect of positive free speech, it offers a useful example of the freedom’s positive dimensions. The chapter focuses on legal conditions underlying public speech and their links to democratic constitutional arrangements. It outlines the general approach before drawing brief comparisons with two well-known US approaches to free speech and media freedom. The chapter then highlights two of the multiple ways in which ‘positive’ can be used in relation to free speech. Positive may concern positive freedom, the idea that freedom is not only a negative liberty but requires support or enablement. It can also be used in terms of a positive right, typically a legal right enforced through courts.
Free Speech and Elections
Authors: Tham Joo-Cheong , Ewing K. D. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter examines how elections give rise to special problems relating to speech. In the choice of government and governors, speech needs to be lively and robust, which is not to say of course that speech should be unconstrained. Indeed, the paradox of elections is that they need both freedom and restraint if electoral purposes are to be served. In the context between candidates and parties, who else should be permitted to speak, and what if anything should they be prohibited from saying? In the context of elections, however, what has become a bigger concern in modern liberal democracies is not who may speak and what can they say, but what means can they use, what opportunities and restrictions are to apply to the means used, and how much can be spent in projecting electoral messages? These latter questions do not address the content of speech so much as its volume, but they are urgent questions in light of the exponential increase in the sums spent by candidates, parties, and others in seeking to influence electoral outcomes.
When Is Speech That Causes Unlawful Conduct Protected by Freedom of Speech? The Case of the First Amendment?
Authors: Stone Geoffrey R. 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter investigates the question of speech causing unlawful conduct. Should speech that causes others to violate the law be protected by the freedom of speech? If those who violate the law can be punished, why not also punish those who cause them to violate the law? For more than two centuries, this question has played a central role in the evolution of First Amendment jurisprudence in the United States. Because the issue has arisen most often in the United States in time of war, the chapter reviews the American experience with this question during the ‘Half War’ with France in 1798, the Civil War, World War I, the Cold War, and over the course of the last half-century. It then offers some concluding observations.
Parades, Picketing, and Demonstrations
Authors: Zick Timothy 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter focuses on parades, pickets, and demonstrations, which are forms of civic engagement that communicate aspirations, ideas, and, quite often, dissenting opinions to fellow citizens, governments, and broader audiences. For many, gathering together in public, in these and similar forms, is a cathartic act of self-fulfilment and a demonstration of solidarity. Collective action in the form of public gatherings is an integral part of any system of communicative freedom. In the United States, in addition to the freedom of speech, rights to ‘peaceably assemble’ and to ‘petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ are explicitly provided for in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Ultimately, parades, pickets, and demonstrations all further basic expressive values relating to self-governance, the search for truth, and individual autonomy. Nevertheless, Americans seeking to engage in collective modes of expression face a variety of doctrinal, legal, social, and political challenges. The chapter then details how digital connectivity has facilitated expressive opportunities by connecting individuals and supporting new forms of associational activity.
Music and Art
Authors: Tushnet Mark 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter explores the problem of incorporating music and art into a theory of freedom of speech without also including a far wider range of human activities. Constitution writers and scholars of free expression agree that music and art are covered by principles of free expression. Exactly why they are is a bit unclear, but the unclarity has few practical implications. Examination of the coverage of music and art, though, may reveal something about free expression theory. It may show that that theory deals with subjects sharing a family resemblance rather than resting upon ‘foundations’. If so, the examination has significant theoretical implications—and almost no practical ones. Democratic governments rarely attempt to coercively regulate art and music.
Autonomy and Free Speech
Authors: Mackenzie Catriona , Meyerson Denise 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter evaluates the relationship between autonomy and freedom of speech, examining a variety of autonomy-based justifications for the importance of speech and especially of freedom of speech. The differences between these justifications relate not only to the different conceptions of autonomy that underpin them, but also to their different responses to the problem of competing autonomy interests. It is plausible to think that the state should respect, protect, and promote the autonomy of everyone—speakers, listeners, thinkers, bystanders, and members of the public at large. Enhancing the autonomy of some might, however, require restricting the speech of others. The liberty-based conceptions of autonomy prioritize the interests of speakers and listeners and hold that the primary obligation of the state is the negative duty not to interfere with the autonomy of individual speakers and listeners. By contrast, the relational conceptions of autonomy hold that the negative liberty interests of individual speakers and hearers should be balanced against the positive duties of the state to promote the social conditions necessary for the development and exercise of autonomy by all citizens.
Freedom of Expression and Democracy
Authors: Bhagwat Ashutosh , Weinstein James 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the relationship between freedom of expression and democracy from both a historical and a theoretical perspective. The term ‘freedom of expression’ includes free speech, freedom of the press, the right to petition government, and freedom of political association. Eighteenth-century proponents of popular government had long offered democratic justifications for freedom of expression. The chapter then demonstrates that freedom of political expression is a necessary component of democracy. It describes two core functions of such expression: an informing and a legitimating one. Finally, the chapter examines the concept of ‘democracy’, noting various ways in which democracies vary among themselves, as well as the implications of those variations for freedom of expression. Even before democratic forms of government took root in the modern world.
Chronicles/Paralipomena
Authors: Vianès Laurence 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
‘Paralipomena’ is the Greek title for what in English is known as the books of Chronicles. The name means ‘things omitted’, i.e. in relation to the contents of the books of Kings, to which it was seens as a complement in antiquity. The division into two books has always existed in the Greek as far as we know and was introduced into Hebrew editions only in modern times. There are two main textual traditions, the Old Greek, and the Antiochian or Lucianic recension. The precise relationship of Paralipomena to the Hebrew Samuel–Kings and Greek 1–4 Kingdoms and to 1 and 2 Esdras is complex and not easily resolved.
Jeremiah and Baruch
Authors: Richelle Matthieu 
Published: February 2021

Abstract
This chapter discusses two books that are inseparable in the Septuagint manuscripts: Jeremiah and Baruch. For both books, it surveys classical topics like translators, translation technique, and provenance. The main focus, however, is on the manner they exemplify important and recurrent issues in Septuagintal studies. The book of Jeremiah is a textbook case of a work that exists in two literary editions, a short one (in Hebrew) and a long one (in Greek). The study of the book of Baruch is a good example of a pseudepigraphical work that seems to be translated from a Semitic language, although this is disputed.