Against Egalitarianism

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-209
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier

Highly redistributive taxation and left-wing regimes like property-owning democracy and liberal socialism cannot create trust for the right reasons. They are either likely to reduce social and political trust or cannot be publicly justified, or both. For example, property-owning democracy and liberal socialism are likely to sacrifice economic growth, violating the principle of sustainable improvements, and undermining the economic bases for political trust in particular. However, liberal societies can probably increase trust for the right reasons by adopting coercion-reducing policies aimed at compressing economic inequalities, such as reducing local control over residential zoning. The market may also be restricted to protect workers from workplace coercion. This chapter addresses important work on the matter from John Rawls, Thomas Piketty, and Martin Gilens.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart James Turnbull-Dugarte

Snap elections, those triggered by incumbents in advance of their original date in the electoral calendar, are a common feature of parliamentary democracies. In this paper we ask: do snap elections influence citizens' trust in the government? Theoretically, we argue that providing citizens with an additional means of endorsing or rejecting the incumbent - giving voters a chance to ''have their say'' - can be interpreted by citizens as normatively desirable and demonstrative of the incumbents desire to legitimise their agenda by (re)-invigorating their political mandate. Leveraging the quasi-experimental setting provided by the coincidental timing of the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May's, shock announcement of early elections in April 2017 with the fieldwork for the Eurobarometer survey, we demonstrate that the announcement of snap elections has a sizeable and significant positive effect on political trust. These, on average, positive effects, however, mask asymmetric responses among citizens. Whilst eurosceptics and voters on the right of the ideological spectrum - those most inclined to support the incumbent May-led Conservative government - became more trusting, no such changes in trust were observed amongst left-wing or non-eurosceptic respondents. Our study advances the understanding of a relatively understudied yet not uncommon political phenomenon, providing causal evidence that snap elections have implications for political trust.


2020 ◽  
pp. 237-276
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier

This chapter attempts to show that electoral rights, rights to participate in the selection of political officials, create trust for the right reasons. Electoral rights and the resultant democratic practices help to sustain social and political trust in the real world. They are also publicly justified to a diverse public. The arguments herein also support a new kind of democratic theory: process democracy, which seeks to structure different stages of the democratic process in accord with different democratic values. This chapter addresses important work on democratic theory, such as the recent work of Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels and recent developments in designing deliberative institutions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier

The market economy can create trust for the right reasons. Markets and property rights promote social and political trust in the real world by creating social cohesion through exchange and generating economic growth. Markets also arise from private property rights, which are publicly justified based on the essential role private property rights play in protecting individual rights and the rights of associations. This includes private property rights in capital, that is, productive property, which means that a broadly market-based economy will be a central feature in any society that maintains high levels of social and political trust in the right ways.


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Anna Miglietta ◽  
Barbara Loera

We analyzed the relationship between modern forms of populism and citizen support for exclusive welfare policies and proposals, and we focused on support for left-wing- and right-wing-oriented welfare policies enacted or proposed during the Lega Nord (LN)–Five Star Movement (FSM) government in Italy (2018–2019). In light of the theoretical perspective of political ideology as motivated by social cognition, we examined citizens’ support for the two policies considering adherence to populist attitudes, agreement on the criteria useful to define ingroup membership, and personal values. We also took into account the role of cognitive sophistication in populism avoidance. A total of 785 Italian adults (F = 56.6; mean age = 35.8) completed an online survey in the summer of 2019 based on the following: support for populist policies and proposals, political ideologies and positioning, personal values, and ingroup boundaries. We used correlation and regression analyses. The results highlight the relationships between populism and political conservatism. Populism was related to the vertical and horizontal borders defining the “people”; cognitive sophistication was not a relevant driver. We identified some facilitating factors that could promote adherence to and support for public policies inspired by the values of the right or of the left, without a true ideological connotation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zicong Guo ◽  
Kunhua Wen ◽  
Yuwen Qin ◽  
Yihong Fang ◽  
Zhengfeng Li ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this paper, a sub-wavelength metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide structure is proposed by using a cross-shape rectangular cavity, of which wings are coupled with two rectangular cavities. Firstly, a cross-shape rectangular cavity is placed between the input and output MIM waveguides. According to the mutual interference between bright and dark modes, three Fano resonant peaks are generated. Secondly, by adding a rectangular cavity on the left wing of the cross shaped one, five asymmetric Fano resonance peaks are obtained. Thirdly, six asymmetric Fano resonance peaks are achieved after adding another cavity on the right wing. Finally, the finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method and multimode interference coupled-mode theory (MICMT) are used to simulate and analyze the coupled plasmonic resonant system, respectively. The highest sensitivity of 1 000nm/RIU is achieved.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenhua Su ◽  
Yang Cao ◽  
Jingkai He ◽  
Waibin Huang

Existing studies have traced China’s high political trust to three sources: traditional culture, the state’s success in fostering economic growth, and ideological propaganda. We identify a fourth source: perceived social mobility. We argue that when people perceive a reasonable chance for upward mobility based on personal initiatives and efforts, the status quo becomes more justifiable because individuals are responsible for their own successes and failures. Perceived social mobility thus instills a sense of optimism and fairness and exonerates the regime from many blames, thereby enhancing political trust. Regression analysis of the China portion of the 2007 World Values Survey data shows that respondents who saw themselves as having choices and control in life were indeed more likely to trust the ruling communist party. The respondents’ overall level of perceived social mobility is also high, which is consistent with the massive shake-up of the preexisting social order in China’s reform era.


1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Canone ◽  
Jean Claude Guyot

For the 1978 legislative elections, all French political parties have, for the first time, a relatively detailed health policy. The right-wing parties of the present government concentrate on the reduction of medical expenditure and the maintenance of the free enterprise tradition of French medicine. The left-wing parties concentrate more on the development of public health institutions and suggest nationalization of the pharmaceutical industry. Within the Left, there is, however, a difference of emphasis: the Socialists propose the setting up of medicosocial centers and abolition of the fee-for-service system; the Communists concentrate rather on industrial health and believe that an improved health service can only come from changes in overall social economic policy. None of these policies is particularly adventurous but their mere existence shows that health is now a major political preoccupation in France. Some of these policies are mainly concerned with individual and public welfare and others with the necessity of maintaining a certain social order. The debate surrounding health policy usually turns around these two issues.


1993 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 1263-1271 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Antonio ◽  
W. J. Gonyea

Intermittent stretch of the anterior latissimus dorsi (ALD) muscle produces fiber hypertrophy without fiber hyperplasia (J. Appl. Physiol. 74: 1893–1898, 1993). This study was undertaken to determine if a progressive increase in load and duration of stretch would induce extremely large muscle fiber areas or if the fibers would reach a critical size before the onset of fiber hyperplasia. Weights ranging from 10 to 35% of the bird's mass were attached to the right wing of 26 adult quail while the left wing served as the intra-animal control. The stretch protocol was as follows: day 1 (10% wt), days 2 and 3 (rest), day 4 (15% wt), days 5–7 (rest), day 8 (20% wt), days 9 and 10 (rest), days 11–14 (25% wt), days 15 and 16 (rest), and days 17–38 (35% wt). Birds were killed after 12, 16, 20, 24, and 28 days of stretch not including rest days. Muscle mass increased 174% (12 days), 196% (16 days), 225% (20 days), 264% (24 days), and 318% (28 days). Muscle length increased 60% (12 days), 34% (16 days), 59% (20 days), 50% (24 days), and 51% (28 days). Mean fiber area increased 111% (12 days), 142% (16 days), 75% (20 days), 90% (24 days), and 39% (28 days). Fiber number, which was measured histologically, increased significantly by 82% only in the 28 days of stretch group. The percentage of slow tonic fibers did not change for any of the time points examined.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Özay Mehmet

The recent crisis in Turkey has been described primarily as a political crisis caused by an unworkable political system under attack from organized terrorism from both the right and the left. While this may be valid as an immediate cause, there are some structural and ideological contradictions in the Turkish economic system which must also be highlighted. These contradictions have evolved gradually over the last half century in the course of Turkey's efforts to achieve industrial and economic growth. They have been exacerbated in particular by a process of lopsided industrialization after 1960 which, as in most other developing countries, has resulted in increased poverty and unemployment while achieving overall growth rates of 6 percent or better.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjetil Klette Bøhler

This article investigates the role of music in presidential election campaigns and political movements inspired by theoretical arguments in Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis, John Dewey ́s pragmatist rethinking of aesthetics and existing scholarship on the politics of music. Specifically, it explores how musical rhythms and melodies enable new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique in an increasingly polarized Brazil through an ethnomusicological exploration of how left-wing and right-wing movements used music to disseminate politics during the 2018 election that culminated in the presidency of Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Three lessons can be learned. First, in Brazil, music breathes life, energy, and affective engagement into politics—sung arguments and joyful rhythms enrich public events and street demonstrations in complex and dynamic ways. Second, music is used by right-wing and left-wing movements in unique ways. For Bolsonaro supporters and right-wing movements, jingles, produced as part of larger election campaigns, were disseminated through massive sound cars in the heart of São Paulo while demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved Brazilian flags. In contrast, leftist musical politics appears to be more spontaneous and bohemian. Third, music has the ability to both humanize and popularize bolsonarismo movements that threaten human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, among others, in contemporary Brazil. To contest bolsonarismo, Trumpism, and other forms of extreme right-wing populism, we cannot close our ears and listen only to grooves of resistance and songs of freedom performed by leftists. We must also listen to the music of the right.


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