Realism, Values, and Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Graham Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Normative Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
Normative Political Theory

The chapter identifies the core normative concern with transformative approaches to development: the coercion involved in generating capitalist development. It rejects a utilitarian solution to this problem and questions the idealism of mainstream normative political theory. It sets out a realist normative approach that accepts an antagonism in the values of development. It emphasizes how normativity is constructed not deduced and identifies the value-in-contention within development. It sets out a modified realist approach in which the basic legitimacy of developmentalism is based on both authoritative governance and the construction of a commonwealth. It finishes by making some illustrations of how norms can be understood in development contexts.

Soziale Disziplinierung im flexiblen Kapitalismus

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Tobias Wölfle ◽  
Oliver Schöller
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Municipal Level

Under the term “Hilfe zur Arbeit” (aid for work) the federal law of social welfare subsumes all kinds of labour disciplining instruments. First, the paper shows the historical connection of welfare and labour disciplining mechanisms in the context of different periods within capitalist development. In a second step, against the background of historical experiences, we will analyse the trends of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” during the past two decades. It will be shown that by the rise of unemployment, the impact of labour disciplining aspects of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” has increased both on the federal and on the municipal level. For this reason the leverage of the liberal paradigm would take place even in the core of social rights.

Normative Political Theory and Global Migration Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e1176
Author(s):  
Marcelo Santos
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Important Advance ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Based on the main contributions of normative political theory on global justice and migration ethics, this article assesses the global Compacts on refugees and migration, approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018. The set of conclusions indicates that the Compacts constitute an important advance in global moral and political projects and commitments. However, the application of their predicted terms can bring about problems, distortions, and impasses in the sharing of responsibilities.

The Origins of Temporal Legitimacy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Santos Campos
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Historical analyses of the relations between political theory and time often hinge on two claims. The first is that political theorists have until recently put less emphasis on the future than the past when debating political legitimacy and obligation. The second is that the history of political theory draws a fundamental distinction between theories that invoke time to legitimate political structures and theories that reject temporal considerations in favor of timeless principles. This chapter disputes these two claims by maintaining that competing languages of legitimacy harbor different and interrelated conceptions of temporality. A survey of time conceptions in the history of political philosophy shows that normative political theory is inherently multitemporal, involving double regard for the past and the future. And, since even tenseless principles of legitimacy often depend on temporally related forms of formulation and application, considerations about time seem inescapable in normative political theory.

scholarly journals Transformative Contextual Realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manon Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Status

AbstractRealist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of political theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections.

Rationalist Empiricism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Digital Photography ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century

Twenty-first century philosophy has been drawn into a false opposition between speculation and critique. In this important intervention, Nathan Brown argues that the key to overcoming this antinomy is rethinking the relation between rationalism and empiricism. If Kant’s transcendental philosophy attempted to displace the opposing claims of those competing schools, any speculative critique of Kant will have to reopen and consider anew the conflict and complementarity of reason and experience. Rationalist Empiricism shows that the capacity of reason and experience to both extend and delimit one another has always been at the core of philosophy and science, and that coordinating their discrepant powers is what enables speculation to move forward in concert with critique. Sweeping across ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy, as well as political theory, science, and art, Brown engages with such major thinkers as Plato, Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Bachelard, Althusser, Badiou, and Meillassoux, while showing how the concepts he develops illuminate recent projects in the science of measurement and experimental digital photography. With conceptual originality and argumentative precision, Rationalist Empiricism is a book that reconfigures the history and the future of philosophy, politics, and aesthetics.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 248-260
Author(s):  
Graham Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Exclusive Focus ◽  
Economic Improvement

The chapter summarizes the argument and evidence of the book. It then makes a case about how capitalist development happens in a ‘profane’ way, that is, full of risk, coercive politics resistance, and instability. It returns to the normative questions raised by the case studies and makes an argument that the near-exclusive focus on rights is misleading. It argues that other norms and values cohabit politics: stability, economic improvement, national belonging, and commonwealth. The corollary here is that normative approaches to development are richer for a realist approach not impoverished. Norms and values emerge within capitalist transition as forceful political mobilizations.

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