Do norms of justice, human rights and democracy enable disenfranchised communities? Or do they simply reinforce relations of domination between those who are constituted as dispensers of justice, rights and aid, and those who are coded as receivers? Critical race theorists, feminists and queer and postcolonial theorists confront these questions and offer critical perspectives.

Most democratic theorists have taken Western political traditions as their primary point of reference, although the growing field of comparative political theory has shifted this focus. In Decolonizing Democracy, comparative theorist Christine Keating interprets the formation of Indian democracy as a progressive example of a “postcolonial social contract.” In doing so, she highlights the significance of reconfigurations of democracy in postcolonial polities like India and sheds new light on the social contract, a central concept within democratic theory from Locke to Rawls and beyond. Keating’s analysis builds on the literature developed by feminists like Carole Pateman and critical race theorists like Charles Mills that examines the social contract’s egalitarian potential. By analyzing the ways in which the framers of the Indian constitution sought to address injustices of gender, race, religion, and caste, as well as present-day struggles over women’s legal and political status, Keating demonstrates that democracy’s social contract continues to be challenged and reworked in innovative and potentially more just ways.

Decolonizing Democracy: Intersections of Philosophy and Postcolonial Theory analyzes the concept and the discourse of democracy. Ferit Güven demonstrates how democracy is deployed as a neo-colonial tool to discipline and further subjugate formerly colonized peoples and spaces. The book explains why increasing democratization of the political space in the last three decades produced an increasing dissatisfaction and alienation from the process of governance, rather than a contentment as one might have expected from "the rule of the people.” Decolonizing Democracy aims to provide a conceptual response to the crisis of democracy in contemporary world. With both a unique scope and argument, this book will appeal to both philosophy and political science scholars, as well as those involved in postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and peace studies.

Political science emerged as a response to the challenges of imperial administration and the demands of colonial rule. While not all political scientists were colonial cheerleaders, their thinking was nevertheless framed by colonial assumptions that influence the study of politics to this day. This book offers students a lens through which to decolonize the main themes and issues of political science - from human nature, rights, and citizenship, to development and global justice. Not content with revealing the colonial legacies that still inform the discipline, the book also introduces students to a wide range of intellectual resources from the (post)colonial world that will help them think through the same themes and issues more expansively. Decolonizing Politics is a much-needed critical guide for students of political science. It shifts the study of political science from the centers of power to its margins, where the majority of humanity lives. Ultimately, the book argues that those who occupy the margins are not powerless. Rather, marginal positions might afford a deeper understanding of politics than can be provided by mainstream approaches.​

Most democratic theorists have taken Western political traditions as their primary point of reference, although the growing field of comparative political theory has shifted this focus. In Decolonizing Democracy, comparative theorist Christine Keating interprets the formation of Indian democracy as a progressive example of a “postcolonial social contract.” In doing so, she highlights the significance of reconfigurations of democracy in postcolonial polities like India and sheds new light on the social contract, a central concept within democratic theory from Locke to Rawls and beyond. Keating’s analysis builds on the literature developed by feminists like Carole Pateman and critical race theorists like Charles Mills that examines the social contract’s egalitarian potential. By analyzing the ways in which the framers of the Indian constitution sought to address injustices of gender, race, religion, and caste, as well as present-day struggles over women’s legal and political status, Keating demonstrates that democracy’s social contract continues to be challenged and reworked in innovative and potentially more just ways.

Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides. Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the “house slaves,” and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing. With great compassion—because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing—Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected.

There seems to be a sort of prevalent attitude in the Western world that its brand of democracy is something of a catch all solution for all the world's political problems. Hence, Western imperialism has always been sold under the pretext of spreading freedom and democracy. Democracy is beautiful. But it is no proof against imperialism. Whether democracy is causal is another whole consideration. It may be a case of the 'least bad of evil alternatives.' It may be a case of a state of social and political development over and above the way people organize themselves. It may be the fate of rational life on a planet with insufficient energy reserves to support locomotion without predation. But what gives anyone the right to go into a sovereign country and change its foundation through War? The whole democracy and freedom line is a lie to give Western imperialism a friendly face. Imperialism and its lie of spreading democracy is an unmitigated evil, whether for material gain, or the pride fostered by active participation in the machinery of state. Therefore, a people seeking to control their destiny must decolonize imposed Western democracy.

What if our understanding of Israel/Palestine has been wrong all along?

Democracy is the apparent motor of globalization, binding together ideas and institutions such as citizenship, human rights, race, the free market, multiculturalism, development, politics and the economy. This book looks to overturn this dogma and demonstrate that ‘liberal’ democracy in fact encrypts and naturalizes the horrors of capitalism and of coloniality, while denying true or radical democracy, principally through constitutions and constitutional theory. Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo turns to the colonized, the marginalized, the creolized, and creates two novel concepts of politics, the “hidden people” and the “decryption of power” to reach a politics through and of radical democracy. The book shows that democracy is the only space of proper politics and the essential opposition of colonization and power as potestas. Sanín-Restrepo connects post-structuralism, subaltern studies, critical legal studies, de-colonial studies and Caribbean thought to muster the necessary theoretical tools to propose new grounds to decrypt the semblance of democracy that is liberalism and thus to demonstrate that democracy, far from being the standardized rule of the majority, a simple process or an institution, is the true being in the world and of the world.

Sociology, as a discipline, was born at the height of global colonialism and imperialism. Over a century later, it is yet to shake off its commitment to colonial ways of thinking. This book explores why, and how, sociology needs to be decolonized. It analyses how sociology was integral in reproducing the colonial order, as dominant sociologists constructed theories either assuming or proving the supposed barbarity and backwardness of colonized people. Ali Meghji reveals how colonialism continues to shape the discipline today, dominating both social theory and the practice of sociology, how exporting the Eurocentric sociological canon erased social theories from the Global South, and how sociologists continue to ignore the relevance of coloniality in their work. This guide will be necessary reading for any student or proponent of sociology. In opening up the work of other decolonial advocates and under-represented thinkers to readers, Meghji offers key suggestions for what teachers and students can do to decolonize sociology. With curriculum reform, innovative teaching and a critical awareness of these issues, it is possible to make sociology more equitable on a global scale.