In Praise of Separation

2019 ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Marks

This chapter offers a novel theoretical approach to the ethical hazards arising from public-private interactions. It outlines the role that separation of powers plays in the public sphere, regulating interactions between different branches of government. Antitrust or competition laws play a parallel role in the private sphere, regulating interactions among corporations. Given these norms for addressing reciprocity and influence in the context of public-public and private-private interactions respectively, the chapter makes the case for analogous norms to govern public-private interactions. Rationales for public-private partnerships (PPPs) are analogous to claims that have been decisively rejected when offered as justifications for violations of separation of powers. These rationales similarly fail to justify the public-private partnership paradigm. If public health agencies wish to preserve their independence, integrity, and credibility, they should maintain arm’s length relationships with industry. The chapter outlines a set of principles that can help public officials interpret existing norms (such as conflicts of interest policies) and develop new norms to govern interactions with the private sector.

Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.


Author(s):  
Verioni Ribeiro Bastos

Diante da estrutura do sistema de ensino brasileiro no qual encontramos a disciplina, Ensino Religioso, constitucionalmente obrigatória no ensino fundamental das escolas públicas até as Ciências das Religiões nas Universidades Federais brasileiras, busco realizar um diálogo com outras trabalhos usando estes como interrogações para questionar o comum tido como natural, ou seja, a presença do religioso na esfera pública. Somado a isto o debate com autores que discutem a realidade francesa e a narração de dois casos extraídos da  observação participante completam a intenção de apresentar um ângulo mais agudo de refletir sobre a realidade brasileira no que concerne a religião, política e educação, como também, como o público e o privado caminham juntos na mentalidade da população do país. A secularização à brasileira anda a passos lentos e o quadro político-social e educacional do Brasil precisa de menos análises do que está posto e questionar por que o que está posto parece normal e se perpetua por gerações e gerações.Palavras-chave: Laicidade: ensino religioso. Política. Brasil. França.AbstractTaking the ideias of some authors we will try to understand the interconnections between religions and public sphere in Brazil and France. In Brazil we get two exemples of the relationship between public sphere and the religion: the presence of Religious Education and the Science Religions in the brazilian federal universities. In other hand we try to understand how in France we can see the relation between the religions and the public sphere thourgh the eyes of some authors who speak about it using two exemples we will show in this text. Completing the intention to present a more acute angle to reflect on the Brazilian reality with regard to religion, politics and education, as well as public and private walk together in the mindset of the country's population. Secularization Brazilian's slow steps and the socio-political framework and Brazil's educational needs less analysis than is post and question why what's post looks normal and perpetuates for generations and generations.Keywords: Secularism: religious education. Politics. Brazil. France.


2005 ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Spasic

The paper offers an analysis of the interview data collected in the project "Politics and everyday life: Three years later" in terms of three main topics: attitudes to the political sphere, change of social system, and the democratic public sphere. The analysis focuses on ambivalences expressed in the responses which, under the surface of overall disappointment and discontent, may contain preserved results of the previously achieved "social learning" and their positive potentials. The main objective was to examine to what extent the processes of political maturation of citizens, identified in the 2002 study, have continued. After pointing to a number of shifts in people?s views of politics which generally do not contradict the tendencies outlined in 2002 (such as deemotionalization and depersonalization of politics, insistence on efficiency of public officials and on a clearer articulation of positions on the political scene), it is argued that the process of rationalization of political culture has not stopped, but it manifests itself differently in changed circumstances. The republican euphoria of 2002 has been replaced by resignation, with a stronger individualist orientation and a commitment to professional achievement.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-293
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Martin

AbstractMost research on the Gulf states focuses on oil and its impact on state power. The literature on rentier theory almost unanimously agrees that oil rents buy off citizens and lead to socio-political stagnation. Massive protests and government attempts to address citizen demands in Kuwait between 2011 and 2013 call into question that narrative. Since those protests, the Kuwaiti government has taken steps to increase its representation of public officials and accessibility in the public sphere, including by expanding the government's presence on Instagram. How have Kuwaiti citizens voiced their opinions to government accounts? And how has the government responded to online criticism?This essay looks at the pattern of interactions between the state and Kuwaiti citizens on Twitter and Instagram using a content analysis of government accounts. The findings raise questions about the validity of the payoff thesis and understandings of consent and acquiescence. My analysis illustrates that there is a public dialogue that moves beyond the rigid structure of state and society by which the literature has traditionally understood Gulf rentier societies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (115) ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
José N. Heck

A moderna concepção de indivíduo justifica-se na esfera pública. O termo publicidade remonta ao modo privado de pensar, no século XVIII, por parte de pessoas que tinham o costume, à maneira iluminista, de ler livros, eram rotineiramente informadas por jornais, criavam associações de leitura e freqüentavam espaços comuns de lazer em cafés, salões e parques, onde à época eram discutidas novas idéias advindas de longe, oriundas dos grandes centros urbanos com universidades centenárias. Esta congruência entre uso privado e público da razão, Kant a contrapõe a um uso específico de razão, privativo a pessoas que exercem funções e cumprem ordens em obediência a comandos superiores, como é o caso dos funcionários públicos; ou seja, na contramão do emprego hoje usual da palavra, o filósofo alemão predica à denominação uso privado aquele que o sábio pode fazer de sua razão em um certo cargo público ou função a ele confiada. Kant estabelece, ao longo de sua obra, o princípio da publicidade como a âncora legitimadora de sua filosofia moral, política e jurídica.Abstract: The modern concept of the individual is justified in the public sphere. The term publicity first appeared in the 18th century to describe the private manner of thinking of those who, following the general enlightenment custom, were used to reading books. These people were kept regularly informed by journals; created reading associations and frequented shared leisure areas in cafés, salons and parks where new ideas coming from afar, originated in the great urban centers with century-old universities, were discussed. Kant opposes this congruency between the public and private uses of reason to a specific use of reason, particular to those who fulfill functions and obey superior orders, as is the case of civil servants. Contrary to the normal usage of the word today, the German philosopher recognizes in the term private use that which the scholar can do with reason in a certain public office or function confided to him. Throughout his work, Kant establishes the principle of publicity as a legitimate anchor for his moral, political and juridical philosophy.


Author(s):  
Katherine Watts

More provocatively than her contemporaries, Mary Robinson argues in The Natural Daughter that women must establish their voices in the public sphere to enact change while separately attending to the influential roles of wife and mother. She argues for financial independence and personal satisfaction by entering the public sphere through intellectual productions, such as writing. By examining Robinson’s concern for converging public and private spheres, we see a unique argument for women’s intellectual worth to be free of their reputations.


Problemos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 129-141
Author(s):  
Aistė Bartkienė ◽  
Renata Bikauskaitė ◽  
Marius Povilas Šaulauskas

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] While scholars and popular writers often stress individual responsibility as a way of saving nature, there is a growing understanding that “doing one’s bit” may not be enough to address local and global environmental issues. Focusing on the concept of ecological citizenship as a starting point, our paper seeks to explore the concept of ecological citizenship and show how individualized experiences and socially and culturally embedded practices of care for the environment relate to civic engagement. We connect ecological citizenship with the ethics of care and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which links individual experience of embodied care for environment with broader political and social issues. We argue that the perspective of the ethics of care informed by the concept of habitus broadens the concept of ecological citizenship by, on the one hand, highlighting the rational responsibility to care, and, on the other hand, by revealing how affect-based ties to the environment and established habits of caring are cultivated in local communities. Ecological citizenship based on the habitus of care can be seen as exercised in participation in the public sphere and also through caring practices where public and private fields overlap.


Author(s):  
Vijaya Nagarajan

This chapter describes three very different kōlam competitions in Tamil Nadu. The first is an unofficial, informal, and playful village contest. The second is part of a festival celebrating Āṇṭāḷ, the female saint. The third is a large, official competition in the city of Madurai, cosponsored by a museum, a newspaper, and the multinational corporation Colgate. These larger competitions have thrust the kōlam into the public sphere, revealing the continual reinvention of the kōlam. The author meditates on the difference between the public and private sphere throughout the chapter, how the kōlam ritual oscillates between the two, and how this influences women’s larger role in society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kosař ◽  
Jiří Baroš ◽  
Pavel Dufek

Separation of institutions, functions and personnel – Checks and balances – Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia – Short tradition of separation of powers in Central Europe – Fragile interwar systems of separation of powers – Communist principle of centralisation of power – Technocratic challenge to separation of powers during the EU accession – One-sided checks on the elected branches and empowering technocratic elitist institutions – Populist challenge to separation of powers in the 2010s – Re-politicising of the public sphere, removing most checks on the elected branches, and curtailing and packing the unelected institutions – Technocratic and populist challenges to separation of powers interrelated more than we thought


Author(s):  
Thomas E. Kaiser

According to Habermas, there were two incarnations of the “public,” or as the English translation renders it “public sphere,” under the Ancien Régime. The first arose during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the royal state gradually absorbed powers and rights previously exercised by semi-public corporations, localities, and individuals. This institutional reshuffling, in Habermas's view, entailed a fresh division between the “public” and “private” realms. “Public,” according to Habermas, came to mean state-related and denoted the sphere occupied by a “bureaucratic apparatus with regulated spheres of jurisdiction” that exerted “a monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion.” “Private,” by contrast, denoted the sphere occupied by those who held no office and were for that reason “excluded from any share in public authority.” Beginning in the late seventeenth century, Habermas argued, a second “public sphere” took shape “within the tension-charged field between state and society” According to Habermas, the social nature of this new “bourgeois public sphere” allowed for the public articulation of previously private bourgeois family values in public settings.


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