Introduction: The Meaning of Liberal Emancipation—An Outline

This book explores the conceptual and empirical bases of emancipative change. The elements and implications of emancipation have long attracted the interest of social scientists, and emancipatory events throughout human history have been the subject of political and public narratives and sensemaking efforts, if not valorization. The emancipatory prospects of freeing individuals and entire groups from various forms of constraints, whether they be formal restrictions or informal kinds of oppression, has gripped the imagination of reformists throughout history. Emancipation is an important source and consequence of change in the world, and contemporary interest in the subject reflects the incompleteness of emancipative projects in many regions of the globe.

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