Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Carole Pateman

Daniel I. O’Neill · Mary Lyndon Shanley · Iris Marion Young

Jul 2008 · Penn State Press

About this eBook

For nearly four decades, the writings of Carole Pateman have been regarded as major contributions to debates within political philosophy and feminist theory. She is the recipient of the 2012 Johan Skytte Prize in political science for “in a thought-provoking way challenging established ideas about participation, sex and equality.” By critiquing conventional notions of consent at the heart of much modern political thought—hence the title for this volume—Pateman has been a central voice in discussions of such important topics as political participation and democracy, contract theory and sexual equality, liberalism and the problem of political obligation, and most recently social citizenship, welfare, and basic income. These essays, all prepared especially for this volume, deal with issues that have been central to Pateman’s work. The authors critically engage with her work while making their own original contributions and advancing ongoing debates.

About the author

Daniel I. O'Neill is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and the author of The Burke-Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy (Penn State, 2007).

Mary Lyndon Shanley is Professor of Political Science at Vassar College and co-editor (with Carole Pateman) of Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory (Penn State, 1991) and (with Uma Narayan) Reconstructing Political Theory (Penn State, 1997).

Iris Marion Young was, until her untimely death in 2006, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.