Politics, Power and Contingency: Judging Hutton and Responding to Mendus

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-766
Author(s):  
DIANA COOLE
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Opportunity To Respond ◽  
Level I ◽  
Early Section

My purpose in the article was twofold: to commend to political theorists a method of critical analysis that can usefully be applied to texts that circulate within public life, and to apply it myself in reading the Hutton Report. Like many people, I was incredulous when the report appeared and suspicious of its conclusions. But I was also curious as to how it managed to appear simultaneously both objective and biased. Consequently, I wanted to investigate how political power was operating at a deeper discursive level. I welcome this opportunity to respond to Susan Mendus's detailed and thoughtful response, both to defend my methodology and to clarify those points where I think she misinterprets its implications. Because her reply is so clearly structured, I have replicated that structure in my responses.TRUTHI distinguished in the article between two competing views of truth, each of which may be situated in presuppositions regarding agency, language and meaning. In the first part of her reply, Mendus contests my observations regarding the empiricist and legalistic view of truth that I associated with the Hutton Report. She makes three observations here.First, she is sceptical that Hutton subscribed to this positivist-juridical conception at all and as evidence, she cites an early section of the report where he explains his intention to reproduce parts of the inquiry's transcript of evidence so that the public can understand why he reached his conclusions. ‘These are not’, Mendus concludes, ‘the words of a man who denies the need for interpretation.’

Наследие популяров в политике Августа (по Res Gestae Divi Augusti)

2017 ◽  
pp. 226-291
Author(s):  
O.V. Liubimova
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Public Building ◽  
The Public ◽  
Roman People

On the basis of The Deeds of Divine Augustus or Res Gestae Divi Augusti (RGDA), the author analyses the significance of the legacy of populares, one of the main political movements in the Late Republic, in the politics of Emperor Augustus. The main features of this political movement, in the opinion of modern researchers, were their demagogic political style, their assertion of the sovereignty of Roman people and their protection of economic interests of the lower classes. In the RGDA there is no mention of the odious political methods of the populares that entailed conflicts and unrest but the text significantly dwells on the tribunician power granted to Augustus. In the Late Republic the tribunician power served as the basis of the populares political method. The ideology reflected in the RGDA entrusts the Roman people with an important role in the public administration and describes the Roman people as a fullfledged partner of the Senate, however it lacks the populares contraposition of the Roman people to the Senate (or to the oligarchy controlling the Senate). The populares legacy is particularly apparent in the RGDA chapters describing Augustus expenses in favor of the Roman people such as the organisation of various social measures, shows and public building. Augustus inherited from the populares of the Late Republic the idea of Roman plebs as a source of political power and of satisfaction of its interest as a mechanism of maintaining political stability, but discarded those of populares slogans and methods that had a conflict potential.На материале Деяний Божественного Августа (Res Gestae Divi Augusti) рассматривается вопрос о том, какое место занимало в политике Августа наследие популяров одного из двух основных политических течений Поздней республики. В качестве характерных черт этого движения исследователи выделяют демагогический политический стиль приверженность идеологии народного суверенитета защиту экономических интересов неимущих слоёв. В RGDA не упоминаются одиозные политические методы популяров, которые влекли за собой конфликты и беспорядки, но важное место занимает предоставленная Августу трибунская власть, которая в Республике служила основой популярского Modus Operandi. Идеология, выраженная в RGDA, отводит римскому народу важное место в управлении государством и представляет его равноправным партнёром сената однако в ней отсутствует характерное для популяров противопоставление народа сенату (или олигархии, контролирующей сенат). Наиболее очевидно наследие популяров в тех главах RGDA, где описываются расходы Августа в пользу римского народа: социальные мероприятия, организация зрелищ и строительство. Август заимствовал у позднереспубликанских популяров представление о том, что римский плебс может служить источником политической силы, и удовлетворение его интересов необходимо для поддержания политической стабильности, однако исключил из своего арсенала те политические лозунги и методы популяров, которые имели конфликтный потенциал.

The Right to Information in India Implementation and Impact

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
_______ Naveen ◽  
_____ Priti
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Know How ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

The Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government with a sense of pride. It flaunted the Act as a milestone in India’s democratic journey. It is five years since the RTI was passed; the performance on the implementation frontis far from perfect. Consequently, the impact on the attitude, mindset and behaviour patterns of the public authorities and the people is not as it was expected to be. Most of the people are still not aware of their newly acquired power. Among those who are aware, a major chunk either does not know how to wield it or lacks the guts and gumption to invoke the RTI. A little more stimulation by the Government, NGOs and other enlightened and empowered citizens can augment the benefits of this Act manifold. RTI will help not only in mitigating corruption in public life but also in alleviating poverty- the two monstrous maladies of India.

The Speaking Silence of Citizens in Shakespeare’s Richard III

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cartelli
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
The Public

This chapter examines the commentative words and silences of the citizenry in Richard III, noting that although silence was customarily expected from commoners in the presence of the elite, it could also signify, in both Shakespeare’s version of Richard’s reign and Thomas More’s, the inscrutable resistance of a dissident citizenry. In London, citizen debate and discussion, informed and intelligent, comprised an important forum of Elizabethan public life; and in Shakespeare’s play, citizen non-compliance with the manipulative fabrications of Richard and Buckingham disrupts the performance/reception dynamic to undercut the bonding of the theatre’s citizen audience with the hitherto charismatic Richard. Though their speaking silence betokens the proud heritage of citizen resistance to royal and aristocratic presumption and contempt, Richard and Buckingham obtusely misread this as obtuseness, revealing themselves to be held in a kind of self-hypnosis by the public transcript, memorably subverted by Shakespeare.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitch Kachun
Keyword(s):  
American History ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Public Life ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
The Many

The Conclusion ties together the book’s main arguments about Crispus Attucks’s place in American history and memory. We do not know enough about his experiences, associations, or motives before or during the Boston Massacre to conclude with certainty that Attucks should be considered a hero and patriot. But his presence in that mob on March 5, 1770, embodies the diversity of colonial America and the active participation of workers and people of color in the public life of the Revolutionary era. The strong likelihood that Attucks was a former slave who claimed his own freedom and carved out a life for himself in the colonial Atlantic world adds to his story’s historical significance. The lived realities of Crispus Attucks and the many other men and women like him must be a part of Americans’ understanding of the nation’s founding generations.

The Public Life of Montaigne

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Desan
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
The Public

Montaigne’s public life extends over more than thirty years—from 1556 to 1588. His first career was as a member of the parlement from 1554 to 1570, one that reflected the desire of his father, Pierre Eyquem. After leaving his post of councilor in the parlement of Bordeaux, he displayed his diplomatic ambitions, which were not rewarded. In 1581, Montaigne was appointed mayor of Bordeaux for two years; he was reelected to this position in 1583. After his term of office ended, for a time he played the role of negotiator between Henry III and the leader of the Protestant party, Henry of Navarre. Imprisoned in 1588, he abandoned all political ambitions and ended his public life before retiring to his château. The public life of Montaigne allows us to consider the Essays as an attempt at political reappropriation in the aftermath of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

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