Conclusion

Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim

This final chapter emphasizes the critical importance of Confucian political theory’s acceptability to ordinary men and women actually living in East Asia, many of whom are not ready to accept or even actively reject the self-validating moral authority of Confucianism, while struggling with their public standing as “citizens.” It argues that the future of Confucian political theory hinges critically on its ability to furnish a normative framework by which to make sense of, critically reflect upon, and morally improve the ways in which Confucianism (its culture, philosophical ideas, and ethical beliefs) interacts with modern social, economic, and political norms and institutions. The consequence is a political theory that helps citizens in East Asia to mitigate various forms of contingences arising from the circumstances of modern politics, not by overcoming Confucianism but by means of its cultural resources and philosophical insights.

Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim

This chapter introduces the conception of pragmatic Confucian democracy understood as a mode of democracy whose political institutions and social practices, which together make democracy a way of life, are justified on pragmatic grounds under the circumstances of modern politics in East Asia, whose civic culture remains characteristically Confucian. It offers a preliminary explanation for three key background assumptions that underpin pragmatic Confucian democracy, with a view to illuminating its distinctive features as a political theory relative to the existing proposals of Confucian democracy. Those background assumptions are (a) circumstances of modern politics, (b) second-order value of democracy, and (c) democracy as a social experience.


2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Vaia Touna

This paper argues that the rise of what is commonly termed "personal religion" during the Classic-Hellenistic period is not the result of an inner need or even quality of the self, as often argued by those who see in ancient Greece foreshadowing of Christianity, but rather was the result of social, economic, and political conditions that made it possible for Hellenistic Greeks to redefine the perception of the individual and its relationship to others.


Author(s):  
Michael Goodhart

Chapter 3 engages with realist political theory throughcritical dialogues with leading realist theorists. It argues that realist political theories are much more susceptible to conservatism, distortion, and idealization than their proponents typically acknowledge. Realism is often not very realistic either in its descriptions of the world or in its political analysis. While realism enables the critical analysis of political norms (the analysis of power and unmasking of ideology), it cannot support substantive normative critique of existing social relations or enable prescriptive theorizing. These two types of critique must be integrated into a single theoretical framework to facilitate emancipatory social transformation.


Author(s):  
Frank Fischer

This final chapter explores ideas previously taken up and relates them to political theory, democratic deliberative politics in particular. Up to this point, these ideas have been presented as theoretical contributions to both participatory governance and the relocalization movement. The discussion here seeks to extend the theoretical perspective more specifically to a number of important but relatively neglected traditions in democratic political theory, especially as they relate to ideas taken from the writings of Bookchin and Sale. This involves the theories of associative democracy, insurgent democratic politics, and participatory or democratic expertise. These theoretical orientations are provided as steps in search of a broader environmental political theory that can address the democratic struggles that are anticipated during the socio-ecological climate crisis ahead.


1991 ◽  
Vol 73 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1244-1246 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger ◽  
Katherine Makarec

28 men and 32 women were given Vingiano's Hemisphericity Questionnaire and the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory. People who reported the greatest numbers of right hemispheric indicators displayed the lowest self-esteem; the correlations were moderately strong ( r>.50) for both men and women. These results support the hypothesis that the sense of self is primarily a linguistic, left-hemispheric phenomenon and that a developmental history of frequent intrusion from right-hemispheric processes can infuse the self-concept with negative affect.


1996 ◽  
Vol 79 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1103-1106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schill

55 men and 55 women were administered Schill's Self-defeating Personality Scale, an argumentativeness scale, and a measure of assertive self-statements. Women with higher scores on the Self-defeating Personality Scale had lower scores on the argumentativeness scale. Both men and women scoring higher on the Self-defeating Personality Scale recalled having thoughts which inhibited them from making assertive statements. These results were discussed as supporting prior research showing that persons reporting more self-defeating characteristics were relatively unassertive.


1988 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 981-982
Author(s):  
Kerry C. Martin ◽  
Jay Hewitt

Men and women were presented descriptions of two dyadic work groups. In both groups, one member of the dyad did approximately two-thirds of the work. For one of the groups, subjects were asked to imagine that they were the worker of high productivity while for the other group subjects were asked to imagine that they were impartial observers. Subjects were asked to divide the rewards among the two workers for both groups. Men and women did not differ in allocation of reward when acting as impartial observers. When subjects imagined themselves as the worker of high productivity, men gave themselves a greater share of the reward than did women. It was concluded that the results were consistent with the self-interest explanation of sex differences in allocation of reward.


Author(s):  
Andrew Davenport

Marxism’s critique of International Political Theory (IPT) is not of specific themes but of how the latter understands international politics generally. Where IPT typically focuses on ethical and normative issues and problems of justice, Marxism has always given priority to capitalism and class, which it regards as fundamental to modern politics and as inadequately recognized within IPT. Marxism therefore rejects the view of the international as a shared “societal” space open to negotiation and compromise, and instead emphasizes irreconcilable conflict and exploitation. Through its leading schools of Imperialism, World Systems Theory, and Neo-Gramscian theory, Marxism has provided accounts of international politics that strongly contrast with the concerns of IPT. However, a potentially more far-reaching line of critique, drawing upon Marx’s analysis of liberal forms, remains undeveloped because Marxism has not yet clarified the status of the international within its theoretical space.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Hockey ◽  
Rachel Dilley ◽  
Victoria Robinson ◽  
Alexandra Sherlock

This article raises questions about the role of footwear within contemporary processes of identity formation and presents ongoing research into perceptions, experiences and memories of shoes among men and women in the North of England. In a series of linked theoretical discussions it argues that a focus on women, fashion and shoe consumption as a feature of a modern, western ‘project of the self’ obscures a more revealing line of inquiry where footwear can be used to explore the way men and women live out their identities as fluid, embodied processes. In a bid to deepen theoretical understanding of such processes, it takes account of historical and contemporary representations of shoes as a symbolically efficacious vehicle for personal transformation, asking how the idea and experience of transformation informs everyday and life course experiences of transition, as individuals put on and take off particular pairs of shoes. In so doing, the article addresses the methodological and analytic challenges of accessing experience that is both fluid and embodied.


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