Rousseau and the Meaning of Popular Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Stuart White
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Normative Conception

Contemporary democratic politics in many nations is characterized by a double anxiety concerning elite and “populist” capture of the political process. While the elitism concern points to the need to reassert popular sovereignty, the “populism” concern might be thought to contradict this. Drawing critically on Rousseau’s political theory, Stuart White develops and defends a normative conception of popular sovereignty that emphasizes the properly active and deliberative character of the popular sovereign. He sketches how this kind of popular sovereignty might be instituitionalized under contemporary conditions, and indicates how this potentially can address both concerns over elitism and populism.

Mill on Deference and Democratic Character

2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292097027
Author(s):  
Alec Arellano
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Opportunities For Learning ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Independent Thought

Citizens of liberal democracies today increasingly exhibit a distrust of perceived elites, especially experts and those of advanced educational attainment more generally. John Stuart Mill’s work offers potential responses to this phenomenon. Mill regards deference to superior wisdom as an essential part of a well-developed character while esteeming independent thought. Although his emphasis on the importance of character formation is well known, his concern for inculcating a salutary form of deference has been underexplored. I show how Mill’s approaches to this task include redesigning the political process to amplify the voice of the highly educated, promoting more widespread opportunities for learning, and consistently emphasizing the partiality of human understanding. I also compare Mill’s treatment of the place of deference in democratic politics with that of Alexis de Tocqueville’s, and consider how Tocqueville might critique Mill’s strategies for cultivating deference. In so doing, I demonstrate how these authors provide us with resources for navigating the tensions between popular sovereignty and expertise, and between independent thought and intellectual authority.

scholarly journals Political Theory of Populism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Urbinati
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Democratic Principles

Populism is the name of a global phenomenon whose definitional precariousness is proverbial. It resists generalizations and makes scholars of politics comparativist by necessity, as its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises. A rich body of socio-historical analyses allows us to situate populism within the global phenomenon called democracy, as its ideological core is nourished by the two main entities—the nation and the people—that have fleshed out popular sovereignty in the age of democratization. Populism consists in a transmutation of the democratic principles of the majority and the people in a way that is meant to celebrate one subset of the people as opposed to another, through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it. This may make populism collide with constitutional democracy, even if its main tenets are embedded in the democratic universe of meanings and language. In this article, I illustrate the context-based character of populism and how its cyclical appearances reflect the forms of representative government. I review the main contemporary interpretations of the concept and argue that some basic agreement now exists on populism's rhetorical character and its strategy for achieving power in democratic societies. Finally, I sketch the main characteristics of populism in power and explain how it tends to transform the fundamentals of democracy: the people and the majority, elections, and representation.

Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians: Popular Sovereignty and Natural Rights in Early Modern Political Thought

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
James Moore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Hugo Grotius

This chapter focuses upon natural rights in the writings of Hugo Grotius, the Levellers and John Locke and the manner in which their understanding of rights was informed by distinctive Protestant theologies: by Arminianism or the theology of the Remonstrant Church and by Socinianism. The chapter argues that their theological principles and the natural rights theories that followed from those principles were in conflict with the theology of Calvin and the theologians of the Reformed church. The political theory that marks the distinctive contribution of Calvin and the Reformed to political theory was the idea of popular sovereignty, an idea revived in the eighteenth century, in the political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Political Representation in Concentrated Industries: Revisiting the “Olsonian Hypothesis”

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Hart
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Information Flow ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Threat Perception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dominant Firm ◽  
Dominant Firms ◽  
America Online ◽  
Longitudinal Case Studies

This paper considers whether highly concentrated industries are better represented in the political process, as Olson's Logic of Collective Action suggests, and, if they are, whether this is so for the reasons that the Logic claims. It begins with a review and critique of the quantitative literature that has largely tried and failed to substantiate Olson's view. The bulk of the paper consists of five longitudinal case studies of firms that dominate or have dominated industries: IBM, Intel, Microsoft, America Online, and Cisco. The cases suggest that there is merit to the Olsonian view, but that alone it does not constitute an adequate political theory of the concentrated industry or the dominant firm. Additional variables drawn from organizational and institutional theory need to be incorporated into such a theory, including variables that bear on the allocation of attention, threat perception, and information flow within dominant firms.

scholarly journals How to think beyond sovereignty: On Sieyes and constituent power

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Rubinelli
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Theories Of Sovereignty ◽  
The French Revolution

Historians and political theorists have long been interested in how the principle of people’s power was conceptualised during the French Revolution. Traditionally, two diverging accounts emerge, one of national and the other of popular sovereignty, the former associated with moderate monarchist deputies, including the Abbé Sieyes, and the latter with the Jacobins. This paper argues against this binary interpretation of the political thought of the French Revolution, in favour of a third account of people’s power, Sieyes’ idea of pouvoir constituant. Traditionally, constituent power has been viewed as a variation of sovereignty, but I show it to be an independent conceptualisation of people’s power. Sieyes’ political theory led him to criticise and refuse contemporary theories of sovereignty in favour of what he understood as a fully modern account of people’s power. Based on extensive research in the archives, I show how Sieyes opposed the deployment of sovereignty by the revolutionary Assemblies and recommended replacing it with the idea of constituent power.

scholarly journals Liberal and conservative political thought in nineteenth-century Serbia Vladimir Jovanovic and Slobodan Jovanovic

Balcanica ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 131-153
Author(s):  
Boris Milosavljevic
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Scene

Two very influential political philosophers and politicians, Vladimir Jovanovic and Slobodan Jovanovic, differed considerably in political theory. The father, Vladimir, offered an Enlightenment-inspired rationalist critique of the traditional values underpinning his upbringing. The son, Slobodan, having had a non-traditional, liberal upbringing, gradually-through analyzing and criticizing the epoch?s prevail?ing ideas, scientism, positivism and materialism-came up with his own synthesis of traditional and liberal, state and liberty, general and individual. Unlike Vladimir Jovanovic, who advocated popular sovereignty, central to the political thought of his son Slobodan was the concept of the state. On the other hand, Slobodan shared his father?s conviction that a bicameral system was a prerequisite for the protection of individual liberties and for good governance. Political views based on different political philosophies decisively influenced different understandings of parliamentarianism in nineteenth-century Serbia, which in turn had a direct impact on the domestic political scene and the manner of government.

Indonesian media politics, on reform era from 1998 to 2010

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 1485-1497
Author(s):  
Suyanto
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Media System ◽  
Media Politics ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the dynamics of the Indonesian press since the reform era in 1998 to 2010 indirectly will see the relationship between the political systems of government with a media system in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach This study is a qualitative descriptive which was drafted using the method of qualitative investigation using descriptive approach and library research, which gives an overview of the situation to obtain data based on observations on the site of investigation. Findings Based on Downs’s theory, political theory media takes the ideology of rational choice that is free from the subject. The political theory media developed Zaller is an extension of a study byAnthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy. In 1957, Downs received the findings about the political process of the party competing for the support of rational voters. The findings in Downs’ study can actually explain the most important different forms in democratic politics generally. But Downs theory does not almost mention journalists and do not give roles on reporters independent in politics. Originality/value Dynamics of the Indonesian press since the reform era in 1998 to 2010 indirectly will see the relationship between the political systems of government with a media system in Indonesia. Many media companies set up businesses on newspapers or media even existing media companies to get stronger by establishing giant company or large media group. The originality for this paper shows the comprehensively political economy of media, media politics and research location which is conducted in Indonesia.

The politics of non-domination: Populism, contestation and neo-republican democracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 858-877
Author(s):  
Liam Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Popular Power ◽  
Popular Control

This article is concerned with the antagonistic character of democratic politics, specifically in relation to the neo-republican conceptualisation of politics, as outlined by Philip Pettit. I take up a problem not addressed in the neo-republican scholarship, namely, the broader dispute over the practice of contestation and the scope of its reach in relation to the activity of politics. This article proceeds through an examination of what I call Pettit’s method of political theory in order to approach sideways the concept of ‘contestation’ as a marker for a sublimated antagonistic dimension of neo-republican politics. Drawing on the work of Rancière and the insights of post-Nietzschean critical theory (Derrida, Laclau and Arendt), I examine the relationship between populism, democratic contestation and non-domination in neo-republican discourse. As such, this article exerts pressure on Pettit’s privileging of a status concept of freedom as the supreme political ideal of republican politics. This article explores the political possibilities opened up through a re-politicisation of non-domination, and the radical potential that resides in a politics that does not foreclose on democracy, understood in terms of popular power and not popular control.

Human Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 414-430
Author(s):  
Michael Forman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
The Core

Human rights is a way of articulating appeals for justice and aiming at the juridification of these claims. This chapter reconstructs the political theory of human rights to highlight how solutions to the crises it aims at addressing have been articulated in political theory and practice with the result that rights claims have been expanded from the early assertions of personal integrity, religious freedom, and property of a privileged minority to the demands for social, economic, and cultural rights of the victims of exploitation, imperialism, oppression, and exclusion. This chapter examines the notions of sovereignty that sit at the core of the idea, especially the tension between human rights and popular sovereignty, which can only be temporarily resolved in political practice. It argues that human rights, although incompletely realized, retains its appeal to movements everywhere because it is the best way of realizing justice claims in the context of modernity.

An American Civic Forum: Civil Society Between Market Individuals and the Political Community

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 269-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Service ◽  
The Public ◽  
Democratic Ideology ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Civic Forum

The polarization of the individual and the community that underlies much of the debate between individualists and communitarians is made possible in part by the literal vanishingof civil society—the domain whose middling terms mediate the stark opposition of state and private sectors and offer women and men a space for activity that is both voluntary and public. Modern democratic ideology and the reality of our political practices sometimesseem to yield only a choice between elephantine and paternalistic government or a radically solipsistic and nearly anarchic private market sector—overnment gargantuanism or private greed.Americans do not much like either one. President Clinton's callfor national service draws us out of our selfishness without kindling any affection for government. Private markets service our avarice without causing us to like ourselves. The question of how America's decentralized and multi-vocal public can secure a coherentvoice in debates over public policy under the conditions precipitated by so hollow and disjunctive a dichotomy is perhaps the most important issue facing both the political theory and social science of democracy and the practice of democratic politics in America today. Two recent stories out of Washington suggest just how grave the situation has become. Health-care reform failed in a paroxysm of mutual recrimination highlighted by the successful campaign of the private sector (well represented in Congress) against a presidential program that seemed to be widely misunderstood. The public at large simply went missing in the debates.

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