Explaining Political Tunnel Vision: Politics and Economics in Crisis-Ridden Europe, Then and Now

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Mudge
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Fiscal Consolidation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Weak Center ◽  
Tunnel Vision ◽  
Economic Culture ◽  
Specific Order ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Economic Thinking

AbstractThe grip of austerity in European politics since 2008 presents a double puzzle: electorally weak center-left parties offering no definite alternative, and the surprisingly efficient pursuit of “fiscal consolidation”. To understand this double puzzle this article investigates the institutional bases of alternative economic thinking during the 1930s versus the post-2008 crisis years. Noting the recent prominence of a new social type, theEuropean economist-technocrat(eet), I highlight the historically specific order to which theeetis indigenous: rarefied, international professional circuits that tend to work over, not through, party politics. This contrasts sharply with the nationally-based, party-connected economists who developed new economic orthodoxies between the 1930s and 1960s, including Keynes himself. Approaching the study of economic culture in the public sphere in a Polanyian moral markets framework, I argue that the linkages between European economics and financial technocracies help to explain Europe’s double puzzle. Theoretically, I argue that a focus on expertise and parties, and not just states, is central to our understanding of economic culture in the public sphere.

4. Consolidation and fragmentation

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-58
Author(s):  
Pippa Virdee
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

‘Consolidation and fragmentation’ recounts how the government of Pakistan has shifted back and forth from democracy and military rule to secular state and religious state from the time the country was created. For the democratically elected rulers of Pakistan, it has always been a case of holding onto power. As a result, institutional structures, party politics, and the public sphere of Pakistan weakened and eroded, while the crucial role of the army was strengthened. Pakistan's army was strengthened and consolidated by a civil bureaucracy of client–patron networks. The army–bureaucracy nexus formed the cornerstone of Pakistan that made it into an Islamic nation-state.

scholarly journals Economic Culture in the Public Sphere: Introduction

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Bandelj ◽  
Lyn Spillman ◽  
Frederick F. Wherry
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Culture ◽  
The Public Sphere

scholarly journals "Matriarchal" or "Patriarchal"? Dundee, Women and Municipal Party Politics in Scotland c.1918-c.1939

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth John William Baxter
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
City Councils ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Political Roles ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The City

Dundee has long enjoyed a reputation as a ‘women’s town’. While not every historian has wholeheartedly agreed with this idea, it is true that in women have played a very prominent part in many aspects of the city’s history, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It therefore might be expected that women would play a significant role in the governance of their city in the years after 1918 when women started to gain election to Scottish city councils. However, only a few women sought election to Dundee council before 1939, and Dundee compares poorly with other parts of Scotland in respect to the number of female councillors and council candidates it had during the interwar period. Indeed it can be argued that there was a wider trend of women making less of an impact in party politics in Dundee than they did elsewhere in Scotland after 1918. Several factors influenced this pattern including the fact Dundee had an unusually high number of women in paid employment. However there is also evidence that women in Dundee faced opposition and apathy to the idea of them pursing active political roles. Given the idea that the city was a ‘women’s town’ this may seem odd. Yet, ironically, it can be proposed that the fact women played an atypically high-profile role in other areas of what is often termed the ‘public sphere’ may have actually hindered Dundonian women’s involvement in municipal party politics.

scholarly journals Young adults and the digital public sphere: a cross-cultural perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micheline Frenette ◽  
Marie-France Vermette
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Motivating Factor

This paper deals with the engagement of young adults in the digital public sphere and attempts to identify some important issues related to the phenomenon as well as some of the challenges for future research. It has often been asserted that the newer generations are disenchanted with traditional party politics and prefer alternative forms of political engagement. Concurrently, it has been stated that, because of their pervasive involvement with ICTs and the unique opportunities they offer, the digital public sphere has become a place of choice for them to enact these newer forms of political engagement. The hypothesis that young adults are part of a digital generation that has redefined its modes of functioning within society has been a motivating factor for a study conducted among university students in four different countries1 to see how these new practices play out in the various spheres of their lives. Among other issues, we explore to what extent and in what ways the Internet has become a new vector for political participation among young adults. We will use part of these data to support our reflection on young adults’ involvement in the digital public sphere and to re-examine the classical premises of what constitutes the public sphere. We conclude by sharing our insights on this phenomenon and discussing further avenues for research in this area.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

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