Beyond stateless democracy

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
William J. Novak ◽  
Stephen W. Sawyer ◽  
James T. Sparrow

Pierre Bourdieu began his posthumously published lectures “On the State” by highlighting the three dominant traditions that have framed most thinking about the state in Western social science and modern social theory. On the one hand, he highlighted what he termed the “initial definition” of the state as a “neutral site” designed to regulate conflict and “serve the common good.” Bourdieu traced this essentially classical liberal conception of the state back to the pioneering political treatises of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.1 In direct response to this “optimistic functionalism,” Bourdieu noted the rise of a critical and more “pessimistic” alternative—something of a diametric opposite.

Author(s):  
Tobiasz Adam Bocheński

A political thought is an area of legitimate contribution of competitive ideas. Liberalism is often considered as one of the most significant and influential paradigm of our times. The common acceptance of liberal conception of negative liberty can be acknowledged as a proof of this tendency. At the same time clearly visible is the renaissance of republicanism and the conception of active participation in governance. The liberal and republican assumptions have similar roots but different social practices. The aim of this paper is to examine in contrast liberal and republican conceptions of freedom. The author discusses main categories of both political traditions: state, commonwealth, common good, citizen, individualism, law, limited power and freedom itself. The author attempts to compere republicanism and liberalism as the competitive political paradigms to show the dilemmas of modern states and societies where there is no common consensus referring to definition of liberty.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-127
Author(s):  
Abdoulaye Sounaye

Unexpectedly, one of the marking features of democratization in Niger has been the rise of a variety of Islamic discourses. They focus on the separation between religion and the state and, more precisely, the way it is manifested through the French model of laïcité, which democratization has adopted in Niger. For many Muslim actors, laïcité amounts to a marginalization of Islamic values and a negation of Islam. This article present three voices: the Collaborators, the Moderates, and the Despisers. Each represents a trend that seeks to influence the state’s political and ideological makeup. Although the ulama in general remain critical vis-à-vis the state’s political and institutional transformation, not all of them reject the principle of the separation between religion and state. The Collaborators suggest cooperation between the religious authority and the political one, the Moderates insist on the necessity for governance to accommodate the people’s will and visions, and the Despisers reject the underpinning liberalism that voids religious authority and demand a total re-Islamization. I argue that what is at stake here is less the separation between state and religion than the modality of this separation and its impact on religious authority. The targets, tones, and justifications of the discourses I explore are evidence of the limitations of a democratization project grounded in laïcité. Thus in place of a secular democratization, they propose a conservative democracy based on Islam and its demands for the realization of the common good.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-112
Author(s):  
Nachman Alexander

This article examines how Fadlallah and Khomeini’s respective quests for sovereignty are reflected in their political thought, particularly vis-a-vis their notions of maṣlaḥa, which I define as the “common good.” I argue that if, to an extent, Islamic political thought seeks to maximise maṣlaḥa, then this can also constitute a claim to sovereignty, the definition of which remains multidimensional and contentious. By closely examining Fadlallah and Khomeini’s writings and pronouncements on governance, popular movement, and state, I attempt to reveal how discussions regarding Islamic governance demonstrate a broader claim to authority in Islamic history.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Maria Ledstam

This article engages with how religion and economy relate to each other in faith-based businesses. It also elaborates on a recurrent idea in theological literature that reflections on different visions of time can advance theological analyses of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. More specifically, this article brings results from an ethnographic study of two faith-based businesses into conversation with the ethicist Luke Bretherton’s presentation of different understandings of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. Using Theodore Schatzki’s theory of timespace, the article examines how time and space are constituted in two small faith-based businesses that are part of the two networks Business as Mission (evangelical) and Economy of Communion (catholic) and how the different timespaces affect the religious-economic configurations in the two cases and with what moral implications. The overall findings suggest that the timespace in the Catholic business was characterized by struggling caused by a tension between certain ideals on how religion and economy should relate to each other on the one hand and how the practice evolved on the other hand. Furthermore, the timespace in the evangelical business was characterized by confidence, caused by the business having a rather distinct and achievable goal when it came to how they wanted to be different and how religion should relate to economy. There are, however, nuances and important resemblances between the cases that cannot be explained by the businesses’ confessional and theological affiliations. Rather, there seems to be something about the phenomenon of tension-filled and confident faith-based businesses that causes a drive in the practices towards the common good. After mapping the results of the empirical study, I discuss some contributions that I argue this study brings to Bretherton’s presentation of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism.


1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold J. Laski

“Of political principles,” says a distinguished authority, “whether they be those of order or of freedom, we must seek in religious and quasi-theological writings for the highest and most notable expressions.” No one, in truth, will deny the accuracy of this claim for those ages before the Reformation transferred the centre of political authority from church to state. What is too rarely realised is the modernism of those writings in all save form. Just as the medieval state had to fight hard for relief from ecclesiastical trammels, so does its modern exclusiveness throw the burden of a kindred struggle upon its erstwhile rival. The church, intelligibly enough, is compelled to seek the protection of its liberties lest it become no more than the religious department of an otherwise secular society. The main problem, in fact, for the political theorist is still that which lies at the root of medieval conflict. What is the definition of sovereignty? Shall the nature and personality of those groups of which the state is so formidably one be regarded as in its gift to define? Can the state tolerate alongside itself churches which avow themselves societates perfectae, claiming exemption from its jurisdiction even when, as often enough, they traverse the field over which it ploughs? Is the state but one of many, or are those many but parts of itself, the one?


Author(s):  
Michał Strzelecki

The contemporary state crisis is a derivative of complex economic and social processes. His indicators include not only the visible increase in the intensity of political conflicts (both on a micro and macro scale), the revival and development of separatist tendencies, and the weakening of the role of the state as the basic instrument of organizing collective life. It is also increasing fragmentation of the political scene, the development of particularisms, weakening and progressive dysfunctionality of existing political institutions, increasing economic rivalry and the collapse of the generally accepted axiological system, which is accompanied by increasingly clear questioning of the idea of the common good and progressing pragmatism and egoism. An important element is therefore the disappearance of civic awareness and activity. The intensification of these disturbing tendencies is certainly not supported by the modern education system, whose hallmarks are commercialization and economization, withdrawal of the state and professionalization.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Terezinha Oliveira

The considerations on the book “VirtuosaBenfeitoria” aim atevaluating the relevance of a social project to guide the actions of the ruler and theindividuals, with a view to practical actions that converge to the common good. The infant D. Pedro, also known as the Duke of Coimbra, wrote the work. The central focus of the book is to address the sense of improvement and how the prince should practice and bestow it and how the subjects would receive and practice it. The arguments of D. Pedro to deal with the good and the society are strongly influenced by classical authorities and authors of scholasticism, especially Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, on the one hand our study seeks to show that such knowledge was essential for him to understand the plots that build human relationships, whose premises, to him, should be the ones leading society towards the common good;on the other hand, the goal is to analyze the work we regard as essential theoretical and methodological principles of history that allow us to recover, through memory, historical events that potentially guide us through paths that show the relevance of the Master of the University, as a vector in the organization of a given society. 


2019 ◽  
pp. 623-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Craglia ◽  
Katarzyna Pogorzelska

Abstract In this chapter, we approach the economic value of Digital Earth with a broad definition of economic value, i.e., the measure of benefits from goods or services to an economic agent and the trade-offs the agent makes in view of scarce resources. The concept of Digital Earth has several components: data, models, technology and infrastructure. We focus on Earth Observation (EO) data because this component has been undergoing the most dramatic change since the beginning of this century. We review the available recent studies to assess the value of EO/geospatial/open data and related infrastructures and identify three main sets of approaches focusing on the value of information, the economic approach to the value of EO to the economy from both macro- and microeconomic perspectives, and a third set that aims to maximize value through infrastructure and policy. We conclude that the economic value of Digital Earth critically depends on the perspective: the value for whom, what purpose, and when. This multiplicity is not a bad thing: it acknowledges that Digital Earth is a global concept in which everyone can recognize their viewpoint and collaborate with others to increase the common good.


Author(s):  
Jorge Núñez Grijalva

In all areas of the legal world there are higher aspirations, which represent legal values to be protected, like the justice, the common good and legal security stand out. The present work was proposed to analyze if the Ecuadorian Legislator, in its process of construction and promulgation of the criminal law regulating against the unfair competition, incorporated these three values into it. Regrettably, the results show an apparent absence of the three legal values in criminal law, leaving legal operators at a disadvantage in view of the need to control this type of crime and society, awaiting compliance. Through an exercise of legal hermeneutics, the study starts from a real problem in the Ecuadorian legal system of the criminal law against of the unfair competition, which demands to be discussed in the search for the State to take the necessary measures to solve this problem.


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