The Emergency as Prehistory of the New Indian Middle Class

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 1003-1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARVIND RAJAGOPAL
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The People ◽  
Indian State ◽  
National Emergency ◽  
Popular Consent

AbstractRecent accounts of the National Emergency of 1975–1977 concur that the deviations it represented, while genuine, did not represent any fundamental change on the part of the Indian state, and that the period offers little distinct insight on the post-independence period as a whole. This paper seeks to argue, to the contrary, that the Emergency was a watershed in post-independence history. With its ban on dissent and suspension of constitutional rights, the Emergency sought to suppress all political disturbances to governance. By doing so, it forefronted the problems of postcolonial politics in at least three respects. First, the Emergency demonstrated that coercion was inextricably combined with consent in state-led development. Second, this led to a heavy reliance on practices of communication to redefine coercion and to stage popular consent. Third, in the process, the boundaries of the political were reinforced, emphasizing the friend/enemy difference fundamental to politics. Governance in the aftermath of the Emergency placed an overt reliance on consent over coercion, but in ways that are themselves significant. Categories of culture and community, and related forms of social distinction, gained in importance over earlier developmental distinctions premised on an authoritarian relationship between state and the people. The change meant a shift away from the Nehruvian focus on the economy as the crucial arena of nation-building, involving labour as the key modality of citizenship. Instead, culture and community became the categories that gained political salience in the period of economic liberalization. The mass media were central to this redefinition of the political, multiplying in size and reach, and acquiring market-sensitive forms of address couched in the rhetoric of individual choice. These events, I suggest, are critical to understanding the formation of the new middle class in India, as a category that increasingly defines itself through cultural and consumerist forms of identity, and is less identified with the state.

scholarly journals POPULAR MAGAZINES, NEW LIBERAL DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, 1890s–1914

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-142
Author(s):  
Matthew Schneirov
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Corporate Capitalism ◽  
Popular Magazines ◽  
Mass Circulation

The study of the mass circulation “popular magazine” during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era was revived during the 1990s as part of the emerging fields of gender studies, consumer studies, and the study of the new middle class. Richard Ohmann's seminal work viewed these magazines through the lens of the political economy and class relations of an emerging corporate capitalist society and explored the relationship between mass culture and the political economy of capitalism. This paper reexamines the connection between a national mass culture, the new middle class, and an emerging corporate capitalist society through the lens of post-structuralist discourse theory. Corporate capitalism is conceptualized as in part a discourse, the new liberalism, which incorporated or rearticulated populist and socialist discourses and in doing so temporarily won the consent of the capitalist class, middle classes, and segments of the working class. Through the pages of popular magazines readers were offered pieces of a new discourse that embraced corporations rather than the “free market,” women's entry into public life, and new constructions of the self. During the muckraking era, elements of socialism and populism were integrated into mainstream American culture. Overall, the essay argues that a discourse perspective on popular magazines can open up new perspectives on corporate capitalism and the new liberalism. While corporate capitalism marked the decline of the producer–republican tradition, it also marked the emergence of an American social democratic tradition, a mixture of capitalist and socialist social formations.

The Effects of Ruralism, Bureaucratic Structure, and Economic Role on Right-Wing Extremism

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Schneck ◽  
Douglas Russell ◽  
Ken Scott
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
Capitalistic System ◽  
Right Wing Extremism

In discussion of the social structure of modern capitalist societies the distinction between the “old” and “new” middle class is common. The old middle class is epitomized by the small businessman and the new middle class by the bureaucratic manager and employee. It has been postulated that the political sentiments and attitudes are different among these two subsets of the middle class. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the old middle class in a mature industrial and capitalistic system is especially vulnerable to right-wing extremism. It is the purpose of this paper to report research testing the above general hypothesis by using three factors of explanation.

scholarly journals AGROECOLOGY AND SOCIAL CLASSES, AN APPROACH BASED ON THE WORKS BY GYÖRGY LUKÁCS AND MICHEL CLOUSCARD

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENEDITO SILVA NETO
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Gyorgy Lukacs

Abstract The article proposes an approach based on György Lukács’s and Michel Clouscard´s works for analyzing class interests within the agroecological field, especially those involving the peasantry and intellectual workers, such as researchers, lecturers and technicians, intellectuals being designated as part of the ‘new middle class’. The divergences between the interests of these existing classes in the agroecological field are evidenced to be fundamental for understanding its true relations with Agribusiness. The hegemony of the political-ideological positions of the new middle class has generated a tendency of Agroecology to integrate into Agribusiness, to the detriment of the class interests of the peasantry. A change in the position of the new middle class would require the reversal of its trajectory, summarized in the article, of more than a century of growing political-ideological subordination to the capitalists’ interests.

scholarly journals Lodewijk De Raet: primordiale nationalist of een organische intellectueel van de nieuwe middenklasse?

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-141
Author(s):  
Dries Goedertier
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Social Question ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Ethnic Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organic Intellectual

Vanaf de jaren 1880 was de Vlaamse beweging het toneel van een belangrijke politieke en ideologische vernieuwing. Het zogenaamde cultuurflamingantisme verruimde de politieke eisen van de Vlaamse beweging tot de sociale kwestie en het vraagstuk van de economische ontwikkeling. Het sluitstuk van deze analyse was de these dat de secundaire positie van het Nederlands en de sociale en economische achterstelling van Vlaanderen onlosmakelijk verbonden waren. Spilfiguur achter deze economische heroriëntatie van de Vlaamse beweging was de ingenieur, socioloog en econoom Lodewijk De Raet. In deze bijdrage wil ik de politieke vernieuwing die het cultuurflamingantisme vertegenwoordigde in de verf zetten aan de hand van een kritische dialoog met het belangrijke werk van Olivier Boehme. Waar hij De Raet in de eerste plaats ziet als een primordiale nationalist, beschouw ik hem als een intellectueel die het nationalisme omarmde in een context van kapitalistische versnelling. De Raet schreef in een periode van belangrijke sociaaleconomische transformaties die verklaren waarom hij zoveel belang is gaan hechten aan de ‘economie’. In zijn denken toonde hij zich bewust van mondialisering, de concentratie van kapitaal en de ontwikkeling van een nieuwe middenklasse. Ik argumenteer dat De Raet optrad als een organische intellectueel die aan een embryonale ‘Vlaamse leidende stand’ van kapitalisten en ingenieurs duidelijke richtlijnen meegaf. Zij moest het Vlaamse ‘stambewustzijn’ vergroten door zich in te zetten voor de economische, culturele en intellectuele ontwikkeling van Vlaamse middenstanders, boeren en arbeiders. Alleen een ‘Vlaamse Hogeschool’ in Gent zou volgens De Raet bij “machte zijn om de verschillende standen der maatschappij weer samen te brengen”.________Lodewijk de Raet: Primordial Nationalist or an Organic Intellctual of the New Middle Class?From the 1880s onwards, the Flemish Movement was the scene of an important political and ideological renewal. The so-called “cultural flamingantisme” broadened the political demands of the Flemish Movement toward the social question and the issue of economic development. The capstone of the this analysis was the thesis that the secondary position of Dutch and the social and economic backwardness of Flanders were intextricably linked. A key figure behind this economic reorientation of the Flemish Movement was the engineer, sociologist and economist Lodewijk de Raet. In this article, I want to highlight the political renewal represented by cultural flamingantisme by means of a critical dialogue with the important work of Olivier Boehme. Where he sees De Raet as a primordial nationalist first and foremost, I portray him as an intellectual who embraced nationalism in a context of capitalist acceleration. De Raet wrote during a period of important socioeconomic transformations, which explains why he placed so much importance on “economics”. In his thinking, he showed himself to be conscious of globalization, the concentration of capital and the development of a new middle class. I argue that De Raet acted as an organic intellectual who provided clear guidelines to the embryonic “Flemish leading estate” of capitalists and engineers. They had to expand the Flemish “ethnic consciousness” by devoting themselves to the economic, cultural and intellectual development of the Flemish middle class, farmers and laborers. According to De Raet, only a “Flemish University” in Ghent would be able “to bring the different classes of society back together again.”

scholarly journals SOCIOECONOMIC MOBILITY, EXPECTATIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS INEQUALITY IN BRAZIL

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 647-676
Author(s):  
André Salata ◽  
Celi Scalon
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Cycle ◽  
Socioeconomic Mobility ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes

Abstract After the end of the political and economic cycle that gave rise to the phenomenon that became known as the Brazilian new middle class, in this article we argue that this reading was not limited to verifying the increase in income and consume power of thousands of families, but also framed it within a broader narrative that has hindered the sociological investigation of the phenomenon. Thus, our first objective is to develop, with the support of empirical data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-IBGE), an alternative interpretation of the changes observed in Brazilian society in recent years. Our second objective is to reflect, with the help of data from the Survey on the Middle Class (CESOP-UNICAMP-2008), and also from qualitative research previously prepared by the authors, on the possible impacts of these changes on the expectations of individuals and, thus, on their perceptions and attitudes towards the enormous inequalities still present in the country.

scholarly journals ROLE OF MEMORY IN SHAPING CHARACTERS� IDENTITY IN MAHESH DATTANI�S FINAL SOLUTIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Suman Sigroha
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Personal Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Personal Interests

While writing of contemporary issues Mahesh Dattani constructs a sense of a shared urban cultural identity, which is upper-middle class, professional, English speaking and a cityfied identity. Memory plays a very important part in the plays. Public memory is time and again juxtaposed with personal memory, and it becomes a means to explain and justify the political acts committed for personal interests. This paper looks at how memory, personal as well public, shapes the identities (social, personal and religious) of characters in Mahesh Dattanis Final Solutions. Incidents are important, but only to explain why and how the people populate his plays, acting in ways that they do. The psychological action is of greater relevance than any physical action that takes place in the play. He reveals his characters by placing them in situations where they are forced to analyze themselves in the light of what happened in their lives in the past.

The Scholars' Rebellion: Educational Interests and Agitational Politics in Gujarat

1977 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn E. Jones ◽  
Rodney W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Central Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
Food Scarcity ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
Chief Minister ◽  
Political Agitation ◽  
Indian State ◽  
National Emergency

Severe urban rioting, the accompaniment of an organized political agitation known as the Nav Nirman (Reconstruction) movement, gripped the Indian state of Gujarat in early 1974, bringing to a violent climax social and political discontents from beneath a surface tranquility. Costly in lives and property and damaging to the political fabric of Gujarat, the ten-week-long agitation subsided only after winning two political objectives: first, the expulsion of the Chief Minister and imposition of President's Rule; and second, dissolution of the Gujarat legislative assembly. Resisted by the central government, the overthrow in Gujarat was an embarrassment to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was a factor leading to the declaration of national emergency in June 1975. Gujarat's recent troubles have a background in the 1969 national split of the Congress party, but the immediate issues of Nav Nirman were food scarcity, rising prices, corruption in governing circles, and grievances in the educational system. These issues were seized upon by college students, who sparked the riots and who thereafter provided the most visible leadership of the movement.

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.

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