Constitutional History

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-91
Author(s):  
Yvonne Tew
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Constitutional Construction

This chapter explores the constitutional founding and road to independence in the post-colonial states of Malaysia and Singapore. It provides the historical context for understanding the constitution’s text and the foundations of the constitutional framework. Understanding the broader purposes that motivated the constitutional project provides us with the context necessary to interpret the constitutional text. For example, Malaysia’s constitutionalization of Islam as the state religion was part of a social contract memorialized in a constitutional bargain that also sought to protect minorities and individuals. This historical context is vital for understanding the role that religion would play in the new constitutional order. More generally, the constitutions of Malaysia and Singapore set in place an overarching framework for governance that envisaged continuing constitutional construction in these independent democracies. Rather than mandating a narrow focus on the framer’s specific expectations, as reflected by the Singapore Court of Appeal’s originalist approach, constitutional history helps reveal the foundational elements of a polity that can guide a contemporary adjudication approach. Faithfulness to the constitution calls for a deeper understanding of the foundational principles that underlie its structure and rights guarantees.

Narrative Fictions on State-Terrorism and Trauma: Re-reading Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and John Nkemngong Nkengasong’s Across the Mongolo

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-166
Author(s):  
Eric Nsuh Zuhmboshi
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Mongo Beti ◽  
State Terrorism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Agitation ◽  
African Writers ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The relationship that exists between the state and her citizens has been described by Jean Jacques Rousseau as “a social contract.” In this contractual agreement, citizens are bound to respect state authority while the state, in turn, has the bounden duty to protect her citizens and guide them in their aspirations. In fact, any state that does not perform this duty is guilty of violating the fundamental rights of her citizens. This, however, is not the case in most postcolonial societies where the citizens see the state as an aggressive apparatus against their wellbeing because the state is not fulfilling its own part of the social contract, which requires them to protect the citizens and guide them in their aspirations. This unfortunate situation has laid the foundation for protest and anti-establishment writings in post-colonial societies – especially in Africa. Since literature, as a semiotic resource, is coterminous with its socio-political context, this attitude of the state has drawn inimical criticism from key postcolonial African writers such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mongo Beti, and Nadine Gordimer. Using Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and John Nkemngong Nkengasong’s Across the Mongolo, this essay shows the relationship between state-terrorism and the traumatic conditions of the citizens in contemporary Africa. From the perspective of trauma theory, the essay defends the premise that the postcolonial subjects/characters, in the novels under study, are traumatized and depressed because of their continuous victimization by the state. Due to this state-imposed terror and hardship, the citizens are forced to indulge in political agitation, radicalism and violence in response to their destitute and impoverished conditions.

Counterfeit COIN and the State of Nature Effect

2020 ◽  
pp. 465-487
Author(s):  
Marshall Sahlins
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Civil Strife ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
American Intervention ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Social

This chapter documents the processes by which the American intervention in Iraq transformed a plural nation into a bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all). In the civil strife of ancient Greek cities that was the model for Hobbes' state of nature, the intervention of the larger forces of Athens and Sparta, proclaiming unconditional causes to die for, transformed local social differences into lethal factional enmities. Death then raged from many quarters. The same effect of anarchic violence has followed from imperial conquer-and-divide policies in modern colonial and post-colonial societies. Historically, the state of nature appears as the effect of the subversion of the social contract rather than its precondition.

State-Minority Contestations in Post-colonial Sri Lanka

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-165
Author(s):  
Mansoor Mohamed Fazil
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Research Method ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Social Force ◽  
State Structure ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Military

Abstract This research focuses on the issue of state-minority contestations involving transforming and reconstituting each other in post-independent Sri Lanka. This study uses a qualitative research method that involves critical categories of analysis. Migdal’s theory of state-in-society was applied because it provides an effective conceptual framework to analyse and explain the data. The results indicate that the unitary state structure and discriminatory policies contributed to the formation of a minority militant social force (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – The LTTE) which fought with the state to form a separate state. The several factors that backed to the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 by the military of the state. This defeat has appreciably weakened the Tamil minority. This study also reveals that contestations between different social forces within society, within the state, and between the state and society in Sri Lanka still prevail, hampering the promulgation of inclusive policies. This study concludes that inclusive policies are imperative to end state minority contestations in Sri Lanka.

Nation Branding:

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Gisela K. Cánepa
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
National Community ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit

Nation branding plays a central role within neoliberal governmentality, operating as a technology of power in the configuration of emerging cultural and political formations such as national identity, citizenship and the state. The discussion of the advertising spot Perú, Nebraska  released as part of the Nation Branding campaign Marca Perú  in May of 2011, constitutes a great opportunity to: (i) argue about the way in which audiovisual advertisement products, designed as performative devises, operate as technologies of power; and (ii) problematize the terms in which it founds a new social contract for the Peruvian multicultural national community. This analysis will allow me to approach neoliberalism as a cultural regime in order to discuss the ideological nature of the uncontested celebratory discourse that has emerged in Perú and which explains the economic growth of the last decades as the outcome of a national entrepreneurial spirit that would be distinctive of Peruvian cultural identity.

Transformation of Scientific Approaches to the Practice of Regulating the Socio-Economic Development of a Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-110
Author(s):  
N. P. Molchanova
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Regional Economy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Current Period ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Legislative Framework

The paper deals with the methodology and practice of the state regulation of the regional economy based on the legislative framework and works of Russian scientists in the historical context with account for the specifics of the current period of market transformation. The subject of research is organizational and economic relations, aimed at improving the management efficiency of regional socio-economic development. The purpose of research was to identify the key problems of the regional economy regulation preventing the balanced functioning of administrative-territorial entities and substantiate the need to boost measures of state support. Based on the dialectical cognition method and the system approach, the positions of leading scientists and scientific schools on topical issues of the regional economy as a scientific discipline were analyzed, which made it possible to identify the main reasons hampering socio-economic transformations and justify measures for running a more active regional policy. It is concluded that consistent improvement of methodological and organizational approaches creates prerequisites for improving the results of the socio-economic development at the regional level; however, in the current situation of the macroeconomic instability serious problems may arise to be resolved primarily by the state regulation.

Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Hamid Mavani
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Novel Reading ◽  
Analytic Skills ◽  
Do So

The polyvalent Qur’anic text lends itself to multiple interpretations, dependingupon one’s presuppositions and premises. In fact, Q. 3:7 distinguishesbetween muḥkam (explicit, categorical) and mutashābih (metaphorical, allegorical,symbolic) verses. As such, this device provides a way for reinterpretingverses that outwardly appear to be problematic – be it in the area ofgender equality, minority rights, religious freedom, or war. However, manyof the verses dealing with legal provisions in such areas as devotional matters,marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and bequest, and specific punishmentsappear to be unequivocal, categorical, and explicit. As such, scholarshave devised certain hermeneutical strategies to situate and contextualizethese verses in a particular socio-historical context, as well as to emphasizethat they were in conversation with the society to which the Qur’an was revealedand thereby underlining the “performative” (p.15) nature of the relationshipbetween the Qur’an and the society.No verse is more problematic, in the sense that it offends contemporarysensibilities and is quite difficult to reconcile with an egalitarian worldviewwhen dealing with gender issues, than Q. 4:34, which allows the husband todiscipline his wife if he deems her guilty of nushūz (e.g., disobedience, intransigence,sexual lewdness, aloofness, dislike or hatred of himself). AyeshaChaudhry undertakes a study of this challenging verse by engaging the corpusof literature in Arabic from the classical period to the seventeenth century; shealso includes Urdu and English sources for the post-colonial period.She starts off by relating her personal journey from a state of discomfortand puzzlement when she first came across this verse in middle school to adefensive posture in trying to convince herself by invoking the Prophet’scompassion toward his wives and in cherishing the idea that the Qur’an gavemore rights to women than either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.She began a more rigorous and nuanced study of this verse after equippingherself with the necessary academic tools and analytic skills during her universitystudies. Frustrated with the shallow responses and the scholars’ circumspectionas regards any creative and novel reading of the verse for fearof losing their status in the community, she decided to do so herself with thehope of discovering views that would promote an egalitarian reading ...

Propaganda as a means of implementing the ideological function of the state

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Aleksey Bredikhin ◽  
Andrei Udaltsov
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Feedback System ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Position ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Mass Media

In the article the authors analyze the essence of propaganda as a means of implementing ideological function of the state. It is noted that propaganda is a mechanism of spreading information persuasive influence in the interpretation and estimation of state power representatives. The structure of propaganda is determined: beneficiary of propaganda, subjects of propaganda, content of propaganda, channels of realization of propaganda, addressee of propaganda, feedback system. Types of propaganda are distinguished: political, axiological, educational, preventive. The authors come to the conclusion that the basic directions and the propaganda content are established in normative acts and the programs and organizational actions accepted according to them. Along with the implementation of propaganda, the ideological function is implemented by prohibiting or restricting propaganda or other dissemination of information that endangers the foundations of the constitutional order and is otherwise aimed at destabilizing the political situation in the State, as well as prohibiting the propaganda of ideas that may harm the foundations of morality and morality. The mass media are essential in carrying out propaganda. The State widely uses this resource on an equal footing with other actors to disseminate ideas of public importance and uses the services of various communication agencies. However, the state forms a legal framework for the mass media, their rights and limitations, which still determines the special position of the state in this process.

Standardized Education With Free Textbooks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenia Roldán Vera ◽  
Susana Quintanilla
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Previous History ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
The State ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
History Of

The Mexican policy of state provision of standardized textbooks for all was instituted in 1959 and still ongoing. This is an overview of the previous history of state intervention in the production and distribution of school textbooks, an examination of the particular circumstances in which the 1959 policy was figured and implemented, and a description of the characteristics of the different generations of textbooks that have since been published, corresponding with several educational reforms. The arguments for and against standardized textbooks mobilized by different sectors of society throughout sixty years are discussed in their historical context. Far from this being a debate about the authoritarian intervention of the state in education, issues of social equality and teaching quality have been central.

scholarly journals (Lack of) government policy for indigenous (Sámi) sport: A chain of legitimating and de-legitimating acts

2021 ◽  
pp. 101269022098865
Author(s):  
Eivind Å Skille ◽  
Josef Fahlén ◽  
Cecilia Stenling ◽  
Anna-Maria Strittmatter
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Policy Goal ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Sport Policy ◽  
A Chain ◽  
State Organization ◽  
Existing Data

While colonization as policy is formally a historic phenomenon in Norway and elsewhere, many former structures of state organization – including their relationship to sport – remain under post-colonial conditions. This paper is concerned with how the Norwegian government contributes to creating a situation, which includes the Norwegian sports confederation (NIF) but excludes the indigenous people Sámi’s sports organisation. Based on existing data and literature, we analyse how the state favours NIF through a chain of legitimating acts. Thus, sport is a preserve of colonization, where a one-sided legitimation parallels a de-legitimation of the overarching sport policy goal of sport-for-all. However, there are signs of change whereby actors are challenging NIF’s monopoly and ‘older’ state-sport regimes.

Inventing Canada in the Mulroney Years

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-478
Author(s):  
George Feaver
Keyword(s):  
Conservative Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Know How ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Pierre Trudeau ◽  
Political Bargaining ◽  
Examination Question ◽  
Bargaining Table

‘IF THE STATE DID NOT EXIST, WE WOULD HAVE TO INVENT IT. Comment.’ Few of the responses to this examination question qualified its suggestion that the state might be amenable to instantaneous contrivance or conscious design. The oversight on the part of my undergraduate charges pointed to the still potent legacy of a generation of Canadian political artificers whose projects of inventing the Canadian state had abetted the rise of a species of ‘constitutional politics’ given to the ever more elaborate concoction of comprehensive solutions to Canada's vexing constitutional shortcomings. These projects tended to politicize historically embedded elements in the constitutional order, serviceable if imperfect, which had been conventionally regarded as resistant beyond redemption to improved reformulation. This new-style politics was at centre stage in the long and eventful prime ministerial years of the Liberal Party's Pierre Trudeau, the great Cartesian inventor par excellence of the contemporary Canadian state. It would remain a central feature of the nine-year incumbency of Trudeau's Conservative Party successor, Brian Mulroney. Trudeau's vision of a reinvented Canada had proceeded from his background preparation for public life as an academic constitutional lawyer. Mulroney, aiming to finesse what the more cerebral Trudeau could not, would bring to bear on the affairs of the Canadian state the skills of a labour lawyer with the know-how to get Canada's perennially fractious provinces and interest groups to the political bargaining table, there to resolve once and for all any constitutional differences still outstanding.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document