A “Priesthood of Knowledge”: The International Thought of Henri de Saint-Simon

Author(s):  
Jan Eijking

Abstract The French political theorist Henri de Saint-Simon is largely absent from historical International Relations (IR). This article shows why this is unwarranted and introduces him as an international thinker who made lasting contributions to IR's modern conceptual imagination. Largely responding to the French Revolution Saint-Simon rethought the parameters of international order, imagining the international as a realm separable from national politics and conformable to human agency. International order, on his account, could be actively created. This could take the shape of legislation, trade, or large-scale engineering projects: of new methods of governance. Based on a close reading of texts rarely brought into IR’s focus, this article introduces Saint-Simon as a thinker who cut across traditional IR divides and developed a central actor category of international order: impartial, knowledge-based agents of change. His understanding of international reform not only made it possible to theorize and experiment with a role in global governance for technical experts but also masked the imperial underpinnings of the international projects these experts facilitated. The article makes the case that Saint-Simon deserves a firm place in historical IR, that his thought presents an opportunity for revisiting widely held assumptions about international authority, and that a discernible Saint-Simonian strand of international thought puts typically liberal histories of global governance in question.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Barnett

Abstract Michael Zürn's Theory of Global Governance is an original, bold, and compelling argument regarding the causes of change in global governance. A core argument is that legitimation problems trigger changes in global governance. This contribution addresses two core features of the argument. Although I am persuaded that legitimacy matters, there are times when: legitimacy appears to be given too much credit to the relative neglect of other factors; other times when the lack of legitimacy has little discernible impact on the working of global governance; and unanswered questions about how the legitimacy of global governance relates to the legitimacy of the international order of which it is a part. The second feature is what counts as change in global governance. Zürn reduces change to either deepening or decline, overlooking the possible how of global governance. In contrast to Zürn's map of global governance that is dominated by hierarchies in the form of international organizations, an alternative map locates multiple modes of governance: hierarchies, markets, and networks. The kinds of legitimation problems that Zürn identifies, I argue, can help explain some of the movement from hierarchical to other modes of global governance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
A. V. Sokov

This year in 2021, Shirshov Institute of Oceanology celebrated 75 years old. Shirshov Institute is the largest and oldest research center of seas and oceans in Russia. In the past and present of the Institute, there are many significant discoveries and developments for world oceanology, the most complex expeditions and large-scale international projects. I am sure that our future as a Center for the Study of the World Ocean will be no less rich and bright.


Author(s):  
James Livesey

This chapter focuses on the French Revolution as one of the most important moments in the entangled history of local cosmopolitanisms. Such ideas as rights, property, and democracy were consciously articulated during the Revolution as universals with cosmopolitan spheres of application, and those ideas had profound global consequences over the following two centuries. Alongside this impact on states and legal structures, the Revolution also had direct effects in every community in France and touched communities outside the hexagon, from India to Ireland. The Revolution transformed the most general contexts, putting the nation-state rather than empire as the organizing principle at the heart of the international order, but it also put the most intimate experiences, such as family and emotion, under new light. The drama of the Revolution exemplified the power of ideas and the ambition to create a rational political order.


enadakultura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Revishvili

The rise of the French national politics was taking place simultaneously with the rise of the French power and territories in Europe. The first evidence of the emergence of the French language distinguished from Latin is the text of the ‘’French’’ version of the 842-nd Strasbourg Oath. France is an example of how ideas and myths about a language become ideologies and how it forms a part of a language policy, along with language planning and language practices.The French language was being established over a long period of time. From the 17th century onwards, increasing attention was paid to this issue. It is especially interesting to establish a high level of French spelling, the expression of good spelling in the French language has become an object of social values. On October 19 and 20, 1794, the Public Instruction Committee introduced a new project to teach French to all. French became the language of writing before it set foot in education.The 17-th and 18-th centuries became a period of legalization of the French language. The greatest philosophers and writers of this time legalized the French language in poetry and fiction. At the same time, it became the language of scientific writing. French gained the status of the most brilliant language in Europe over the last two centuries through the French Academy and the French Revolution. It was a new ‘’classical“ language.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Crea ◽  
Philipp Beckerle ◽  
Michiel De Looze ◽  
Kevin De Pauw ◽  
Lorenzo Grazi ◽  
...  

Abstract The large-scale adoption of occupational exoskeletons (OEs) will only happen if clear evidence of effectiveness of the devices is available. Performing product-specific field validation studies would allow the stakeholders and decision-makers (e.g., employers, ergonomists, health, and safety departments) to assess OEs’ effectiveness in their specific work contexts and with experienced workers, who could further provide useful insights on practical issues related to exoskeleton daily use. This paper reviews present-day scientific methods for assessing the effectiveness of OEs in laboratory and field studies, and presents the vision of the authors on a roadmap that could lead to large-scale adoption of this technology. The analysis of the state-of-the-art shows methodological differences between laboratory and field studies. While the former are more extensively reported in scientific papers, they exhibit limited generalizability of the findings to real-world scenarios. On the contrary, field studies are limited in sample sizes and frequently focused only on subjective metrics. We propose a roadmap to promote large-scale knowledge-based adoption of OEs. It details that the analysis of the costs and benefits of this technology should be communicated to all stakeholders to facilitate informed decision making, so that each stakeholder can develop their specific role regarding this innovation. Large-scale field studies can help identify and monitor the possible side-effects related to exoskeleton use in real work situations, as well as provide a comprehensive scientific knowledge base to support the revision of ergonomics risk-assessment methods, safety standards and regulations, and the definition of guidelines and practices for the selection and use of OEs.


Author(s):  
Minna Silver ◽  
Fulvio Rinaudo ◽  
Emanuele Morezzi ◽  
Francesca Quenda ◽  
Maria Laura Moretti

CIPA is contributing with its technical knowledge in saving the heritage of Syria by constructing an open access database based on the data that the CIPA members have collected during various projects in Syria over the years before the civil war in the country broke out in 2011. In this way we wish to support the protection and preservation of the environment, sites, monuments, and artefacts and the memory of the cultural region that has been crucial for the human past and the emergence of civilizations. Apart from the countless human atrocities and loss, damage, destruction and looting of the cultural heritage have taken place in a large scale. The CIPA’s initiative is one of the various international projects that have been set up after the conflict started. The Directorate-General of the Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) of Syria as well as UNESCO with its various sub-organizations have been central in facing the challenges during the war. Digital data capture, storage, use and dissemination are in the heart of CIPA’s strategies in recording and documenting cultural heritage, also in Syria. It goes without saying that for the conservation and restoration work the high quality data providing metric information is of utmost importance.


2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Marie Baylouny

In the decade and a half since economic liberalization began in Jordan, a little noticed but large-scale organizing trend has taken over the formal provision of social welfare, redefining the institutional conception of familial identity in the process. For over one third of the population, kin solidarities have been reorganized, formalized, and registered as nongovernmental organizations in an attempt to cope with the removal of basic social provisioning by the state. Although kinship clearly has been a major element in Jordan's history, the present phenomena alter traditional familial institutions, change kin lineages, and institutionalize the economic salience of family relations. In turn, the relationship of the populace to the state has changed, marginalizing previously regime-supporting groups and facilitating the implementation of economic neoliberalism without significant protest. Repackaged as charitable elements of civil society, these family associations are sanctioned and encouraged by the state and international community. Although they are not regime creations, family associations reinforce the Jordanian regime's efforts at political deliberalization. The new elites who head the organizations have been placated through indirect incorporation into the regime; they now wield significant economic power over fellow kin and have enhanced social status backed by the new group. Furthermore, the trend mainly consists of families without immediate ambitions of entering national politics. These are not the traditional elite families.


Author(s):  
Amal Adel Abdrabo

There is a new trend taking place in Egypt over the last decades that is attempting to establish a new culture of development arguing for a knowledge-based development of Egyptian society. Consequently, Egyptian society has begun to witness the emergence of different policies, national strategies, and mega development projects that try to translate these policies into reality. But the question that remains is what type of knowledge, and in which context, should be developed? In this vein, this research serves two purposes. First, it contests the notion of knowledge while using a new method of inquiry that creates an opening for an alternative-more-humanized sociology that opposes the dominant sociological perspective that studies people as quantitative objects. The research uses institutional ethnography to provide new-actor-related insights and interpretations while exploring the social momentum within Egyptian society. Second, the research seeks to investigate the relationship between the desire to transform Egypt into a knowledge-based society through the knowledge precincts projects, following the global agenda, and the creation of a political, social, and cultural environment that allows knowledge to thrive, leading to more social justice and equity. In the end, the research asks: What is the definition of ‘knowledge' provided by the Egyptian government through its different developmental policies? How does it function inside the knowledge precincts projects? It also asks: Does Egypt's commitment to large scale programs through knowledge precincts reveal an authoritarian inclination?


2018 ◽  
pp. 174-191
Author(s):  
Hannah Worthen

In October 1642 Parliament made a commitment to financially support soldiers who had been wounded in their service as well as the widows of those who had been killed. The administration of military welfare was the responsibility of the Justices of the Peace at each county’s Quarter Sessions and this chapter will examine the process in Kent. This county did not experience large scale military action until 1648 and yet it was profoundly affected by the events of the mid-seventeenth century and witnessed loss and division within its own borders throughout the 1640s. This chapter will present evidence taken from Quarter Sessions records in order to discuss who received pensions in Kent and what impact local and national politics had on the administration of that relief.


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