PROCEDURE AS POLITICS IN THE CAPE COLONY: THE CAREER OF ANDREW GONTSHI, 1880–1904

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-427
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Thornberry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Black Intellectuals ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
Law And Politics

AbstractIn 1881, Andrew Gontshi became the first black law agent in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope and thus South Africa's first black lawyer. Records of court cases argued by Gontshi and his fellow black law agents provide a rich new archive for understanding the political sensibilities of the nineteenth-century Eastern Cape, where Gontshi practiced law and participated in the development of new forms of political organization, as well as the meaning of law to black intellectuals. In both law and politics, Andrew Gontshi employed procedural tactics to hold the state accountable to its own formalities. In Gontshi's world, law provided not a source of justice but a set of tools that could be used to advance a political agenda. Gontshi's story thus prompts a reconsideration of law's place in the intellectual tradition of South Africa's liberation struggle.

scholarly journals Subsidiarity and Federalism: An Old Concept with Contemporary Relevance for Political Society

1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Friesen
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Regional Power ◽  
Single Model ◽  
Human Organization

Historically human societies have never collectively organized, politically or socially, in any singular, standardized and/or universal way. Beginning with the Peace of Westphalia in 1647 the nation-state gradually proliferated as a legitimate manifestation of collective human organization at a global level. This proliferation has culminated in the standardization of a singular means of mobilizing and organizing human societies. The statist age that began in the 16th and 17th centuries consolidated and centralized the political power of the state. Divergent factions and regional power blocks within European states were discouraged, as politics became centralized at the national level. The proliferation of the nation-state represented the standardization of human political organization according to a single model. Given that there are, and have been, a variety of means by which humans identify and organize politically, this suggests that this universal acceptance and entrenchment of one model may be somewhat inappropriate.

The State

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-152
Author(s):  
Paul Stock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Definitive Form

Chapter 6 discusses late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century geography books’ sustained focus on the political states of Europe. The books present states both as organic communities with multi-faceted jurisdictions, and as increasingly centralized governmental authorities. They usually specify that monarchy is the definitive form of European government, and that European states share a propensity for ‘liberty’, broadly defined as respect for law and property, and the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. Some geographical texts talk about ‘nations’, but ideas about European polities remain reliant on established notions of governmental structures.

The Bureaucracy and the Nazi Party

1966 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. N. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nazi Party ◽  
Individual Resistance ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Failure Life ◽  
Group Resistance

THE individual in the twentieth century finds himself dwarfed by two giant institutions which decide his political destiny: the state, with its efficient bureaucrat methodically signing papers that may mean success or failure, life or death, for everyman and his world; the other is the political party, which aspires to control the state by mobilizing the masses. Nineteenth-century bureaucracy tended to be rigid and authoritarian, yet unrelated to popular support and limited in its impact on daily life. The nineteenth- century liberal, suspicious of the state, attempted to protect the individual by further limiting the bureaucrat; the twentiethcentury liberal hopes to use the bureaucrat to limit the privately powerful, whereas the totalitarian party hopes to dominate the state and therewith to dominate everyman. When a monopolistic party controls a monolithic state, the individual seems to have no choice but to flee, to obey or to disappear into a concentration camp. Overt individual resistance appears senseless; overt group resistance extremely dangerous and almost certainly doomed to failure.

An Eighteenth-Century Case of Plagiarism: William Smith's A New Voyage to Guinea

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.M. Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
The Political ◽  
African History ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Complete Report

In the first number of History in Africa P.E.H. Hair reiterated A.W. Lawrence's plea for a “critical appraisal” and analysis of primary sources for African history. The aim of this brief note is to appraise the originality of certain of these works. The focus will be the Gold Coast, with emphasis on the book by William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea, first published in 1744 and reprinted (without an introduction or editorial comment) by Frank Cass in 1967.The literature about the Gold Coast during the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is rich in accounts by visitors, residents, and compilers. Dapper, Barbot, Bosman, Atkins, and Smith all provided descriptions. Only Bosman lived on the Gold Coast for an extended period of time, and the concentration of detail in his book reflects that experience. From about the 1720s to the early nineteenth century, a hiatus in the descriptive literature exists, but then Meredith, De Marree, Bowdich, and Dupuis resume the earlier tradition, so that one cannot say that the Gold Coast has been ignored in terms of European visitors or their original descriptions of the it area.However, when we look carefully at some of these narratives, we find that not all of what is written is in fact original. For example, Barbot's account of the political organization of Elmina is an exact duplicate, in translation from the Dutch, of Dapper's description. Barbot also copied his description of the “Degrees of Blacks” from Bosman. De Marree, an early nineteenth century Dutch official on the Gold Coast, included without attribution in his narrative, a complete report by Governor General Pieter Linthorst written in 1807.

The Elements of British Technological Competitiveness

1987 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 72-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Patel ◽  
K. Pavitt
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Foreign Competition ◽  
R And D ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Government ◽  
Technological Competitiveness

In this election year of 1987 the state of Britain's technology has remained high on the political agenda. Following the critical report from the House of Lords on civil research and development (1986), the government recently announced changes in its machinery and priorities and expressed concern about British industry's (lack of) funding of R and D compared to the main sources of foreign competition (see HM Government, 1987).

scholarly journals LYNCHNING: EN SVØBE FOR MENNESKEHEDEN

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Stepputat
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
National Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
Self Defence

The article explores the phenomenon of mob violence in predominatly Mayan towns in rural Guatemala. Since 1996, more than 100 people have been killed by crowds in rural towns. The victims have usually been young men accused of often minor criminal acts, or representatives of the state trying to protect the victims. The occurrence of mob violence coincides roughly with the area where the army organized civil self-defence patrols during the civil war from 1981-96 as part of the national security counterinsurgency program. The post-conflict transition has paradoxically brought security back to the top of the political agenda as political violence has been substituted and overshadowed by violence related to drug trafficking and other forms of criminality. The article shows how mob violence has been interpreted in the context of postconflict transformations where the elimination of violence and violent conflicts has been addressed as an object of development, and suggests that we, in addition to common sociological interpretations, may understand lynchings as an exclusive practice of communal sovereignty within a transnational political field of politics of in/security.  

Bosom Friends

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Balcerski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
James Buchanan ◽  
The Many ◽  
Male Friendships ◽  
American Nation

The friendship of the bachelor politicians James Buchanan (1791–1868) of Pennsylvania and William Rufus King (1786–1853) of Alabama has excited much speculation through the years. Why did neither one ever marry? Might they have been gay, or was their relationship a nineteenth-century version of the modern-day “bromance”? Then, as now, they have intrigued by the many mysteries surrounding them. In Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, Thomas Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collaborations in American political history. Unlikely companions from the start, they lived together as messmates in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse. They developed a friendship that blossomed into a significant political partnership. Before the Civil War, each man was elected to high executive office: William Rufus King as vice president in 1852, and James Buchanan as the nation’s fifteenth president in 1856. This book recounts the story of their bosom friendship through a dual biography of Buchanan and King. Special attention is given to their early lives, the circumstances of their boardinghouse friendship, and the political gossip that has circulated about them ever since. In addition, the author traces their many contributions to the Jacksonian political agenda, manifest destiny, and the debates over slavery, while finding their style of politics to have been disastrous for the American nation. Ultimately, Bosom Friends demonstrates that intimate male friendships among politicians were, and continue to be, an important part of success in the clubby world of American politics.

The ‘Big Society’ and concentrated neighbourhood problems

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Power
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Community Politics ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Set Up

This chapter examines the notion of the ‘Big Society’, introduced by David Cameron in 2009, which empowers citizens to deal with local issues that are not high on the political agenda. It traces the origins of community politics in the co-operative institutions that people set up to manage the pressures and problems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century industrialisation. The chapter argues that the Big Society is not an alternative to government but that, to be effective, the two must operate within a framework of mutual support.

New Directions in Decentralisation and Urban Policy in France: The Search for a Postdecentralisation State

1992 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Le Galès
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Crisis ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The University

Decentralisation is back on the political agenda in France, associated with the Act prepared by the Ministre de l'Intérieur, Pierre Joxe. It is argued that the reform is, above all, about reorganising the State territorial services in order to match local dynamism. An attempt is made to define a new balance between local authorities and the State in order to deal with some current problems such as the university crisis and the consequences of the urban crisis.

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