Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
ROSS MITTIGA
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Climate Action

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature—which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights—would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means.

Umstrittene Expertise

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Controversial Nature

The current political debates about climate change or the coronavirus pandemic reveal the fundamental controversial nature of expertise in politics and society. The contributions in this volume analyse various facets, actors and dynamics of the current conflicts about knowledge and expertise. In addition to examining the contradictions of expertise in politics, the book discusses the political consequences of its controversial nature, the forms and extent of policy advice, expert conflicts in civil society and culture, and the global dimension of expertise. This special issue also contains a forum including reflections on the role of expertise during the coronavirus pandemic. The volume includes perspectives from sociology, political theory, political science and law.

scholarly journals Awakening the "Walking Dead": Zombie Pedagogy for Millennials

2017 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
Nancy Dawn Wadsworth
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Global Problem ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Walking Dead

This article lays out the pedagogical benefits of using popular zombie productions, particularly AMC's The Walking Dead, to teach a critical introduction to modern political theory. Based on my undergraduate course: "Political Theory, Climate Change, and the Zombie Apocalypse," the article outlines how The Walking Dead can be used to critique the mythic assumptions built into modern social contract theory; to introduce other political ideologies, including conservatism, anarchism, fascism, and communism; and to consider the political challenges raised by a global problem such as climate change in an increasingly neoliberal environment. Zombie productions are offered as a particularly salient pedagogical tool that can help awaken critical political analysis for the Millennial Generation.   

Youth Advancing Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Tasha Elizarde ◽  
Kate McWilliams ◽  
Kelsey Schober ◽  
Brian Conwell ◽  
Carly Dennis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Leadership Team ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Climate Action

Abstract In August 2018, twenty-five young change-makers from Alaska attended the first ever youth dialogue hosted by former Governor Bill Walker's Climate Action Leadership Team (CALT). Five of the dialogue attendees, Tasha Elizarde, Kate McWilliams, Kelsey Schober, Brian Conwell, and Carly Dennis, describe their experiences as young people in the climate movement. They begin by describing their experiences with climate change in Alaska, the work they do within the climate movement, what inspires their work, how the political and economic environment influences their work, and conclude with how social science can support climate work.

Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World: The Priority of Morality and the Autonomy of the Political

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Erman ◽  
Niklas Möller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Normative Conception ◽  
Political Decision Making

According to what has recently been labeled ‘political realism’ in political theory, ‘political moralists’ such as Rawls and Dworkin misconstrue the political domain by presuming that morality has priority over politics, thus overlooking that the political is an autonomous domain with its own distinctive conditions and normative sources. Political realists argue that this presumption, commonly referred to as the ‘ethics first premise’, has to be abandoned in order to properly theorize a normative conception of political legitimacy. This article critically examines two features of political realism, which so far have received too little systematic philosophical analysis: the political realist critique of political moralism and the challenges facing political realism in its attempt to offer an alternative account of political legitimacy. Two theses are defended. First, to the extent that proponents of political realism wish to hold onto a normative conception of political legitimacy, refuting wholesale the ethics first premise leads to a deadlock, since it throws the baby out with the bathwater by closing the normative space upon which their account of political legitimacy relies. This is called the ‘necessity thesis’: all coherent and plausible conceptions of political legitimacy must hold onto the ethics first premise. Secondly, accepting this premise – and thus defending an ethics first view – does not entail that the political domain must be seen as a subordinate arena for the application of moral principles, that political normativity is reduced to morality or that morality trumps other reasons in political decision making, as claimed by political realists. Rather, the ethics first view is compatible with an autonomous political domain that makes room for an account of political legitimacy that is defined by and substantiated from sources of normativity specifically within the political. This is called the ‘compatibility thesis’.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

The Role of Late-Night Infotainment Comedy in Communicating Climate Change Consensus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward John Roy Clarke ◽  
Anna Klas ◽  
Joshua Stevenson ◽  
Emily Jane Kothe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Behavioural Intentions ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
Diverse Audience

Climate change is a politically-polarised issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to perceive it as human-caused and consequential. Furthermore, they are less likely to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarised or depolarised a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioural intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one gender unspecified, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarisation (or increase it) relative to a control on mitigation policy support, it resulted in hyperpolarisation on support for adaptation policies and increased climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives.

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Brill
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Character

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life studies Aristotle’s understanding of the political character of human intimacy via an examination of the zoological frame informing his political theory. It argues that the concept of shared life, i.e. the forms of intimacy that arise from the possession of logos and the capacity for choice, is central to human political partnership, and serves to locate that life within the broader context of living beings as such, where it emerges as an intensification of animal sociality. As such it challenges a long-standing approach to the role of the animal in Aristotle’s thought, and to the recent reception of Aristotle’s thinking about the political valence of life and living beings.

Does socioeconomic status moderate the political divide on climate change? The roles of education, income, and individualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 102024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Ballew ◽  
Adam R. Pearson ◽  
Matthew H. Goldberg ◽  
Seth A. Rosenthal ◽  
Anthony Leiserowitz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Divide

The Political Theory of Data: Institutions, Algorithms, & Formats in Racial Redlining

2021 ◽  
pp. 009059172110278
Author(s):  
Colin Koopman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Know How ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Emergent Literature

Despite widespread recognition of an emergent politics of data in our midst, we strikingly lack a political theory of data. We readily acknowledge the presence of data across our political lives, but we often do not know how to conceptualize the politics of all those data points—the forms of power they constitute and the kinds of political subjects they implicate. Recent work in numerous academic disciplines is evidence of the first steps toward a political theory of data. This article maps some limits of this emergent literature with an eye to enriching its theoretical range. The literature on data politics, both within political theory and elsewhere, has thus far focused almost exclusively on the algorithm. This article locates a further dimension of data politics in the work of formatting technology or, more simply, formats. Formats are simultaneously conceptual and technical in the ways they define what can even count as data, and by extension who can count as data and how they can count. A focus on formats is of theoretical value because it provides a bridge between work on the conceptual contours of categories and the technology-centric literature on algorithms that tends to ignore the more conceptual dimensions of data technology. The political insight enabled by format theory is shown in the context of an extended interrogation of the politics of racialized redlining.

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