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This article discusses the notion of 'persuasion' applied to a political method. It proceeds by comparing and contrasting 'persuasion' with concepts within the 'power' family. There are two sorts of justification for such an exploration of 'persuasion', the first positive and the second negative.

This article examines the concept of interests in politics which has been the subject of major debate in recent years. It makes two proposals: one concerns the elucidation of the concept of interests; the other concerns the relative status of an agent's perception of his or her own interests and an observer's specification of them. For brevity, statements of the form 'x is in A's interest' are referred to as interest-statements.

Originally published in 1989 Liberal Neutrality approaches the recommendation of neutrality by confronting the abstract prescription (that we should be neutral) with the implications for particular people and institutions. This not only identifies what neutrality involves logically, but also exposes the practical difficulties that may be encountered in pursuing it. In some cases, such close examination shows that neutrality is not desirable, and in others that it is attainable only within certain limits. Although neutrality has become a fashionable term in political theory, this is the only volume to subject the idea to systematic scrutiny. It will be useful not only to specialists in diverse disciplines – political scientists, philosophers, sociologists, lawyers and educationalists.

This article explores Hobbes's response to the writings of the Old Testament and to the Book of Job in particular, demonstrating his belief that the art of politics consists in the imitation of the commands of an omnipotent God. This idea of imitation is analysed in Hobbes's treatment of covenant, particularly the covenant with Abraham, which Hobbes identified as the paradigm of all covenants. The same notion of imitation is also illustrated in Hobbes's profound conviction that sovereignty constitutes the soul of the state and Hobbes's belief in an omnipotent God is shown to be consistent with his nominalism, with his undeniable materialism and with his scientific method. Just as the Book of Job revealed the irresistible power of an omnipotent God, Leviathan demonstrated the irresistible power of God's personator, the mortal sovereign. And God's own creation, Man, imitates the permanence of nature in his own artefact, 'Leviathan'.