Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-86
Author(s):  
Augustin Loada
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
The Face ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Control ◽  
Do So

Like elsewhere in Africa, civil society in its current forms re-emerged in the Sahelian countries with political liberalization and the transition from authoritarian rule to democratic systems. This chapter surveys the emergence and the forms of civil society, and analyzes its roles and practices in relation to the efforts to create and maintain political order. Sahelian civil societies in each country have struggled to develop, to maintain their autonomy, and to participate in the construction of new political orders, in the face of the authoritarian impulses of powerholders to domesticate and control them. Civil society is called on to play an important role in promoting, defending, and protecting the principles and values of democracy and social justice in the face of states’ efforts to establish stable political order. The chapter explores the many factors shaping its ability to do so in the Sahel.

Guyana: Coercion and Control in Political Change

1982 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Percy C. Hintzen ◽  
Ralph R. Premdas
Keyword(s):  
Political Order ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Communal Conflict ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
And Control ◽  
State Protection

Many communally divided postcolonial states rely almost exclusively upon an effective machinery of control to ensure political order. This has stemmed from two factors: (1) unrestrained communal competition for votes; and (2) inheritance of a highly centralized state apparatus. The first condition has tended to politicize sectional cleavages, exacerbating distrust (Premdas, 1972: 19-20). Without a body of shared values in the state, protection of a communal group's interest is perceived to reside on the capture of the government. The second condition under such circumstances facilitates “effective domination of one group over another” (Smooha, 1980: 257). Apart from a consociational arrangement, democracy in deeply divided societies is elusive, rendering authoritarian control seemingly necessary to prevent protracted communal conflict and political disintegration (Lijphart, 1969: 207; Milne, 1975: 413; Norlinger, 1972). As a legitimator of domination, stability is a controversial value, especially in the face of cynical and brutal abuses of human rights.

Weak States and Pluralism: The Case of Moldova

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucan A. Way
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Weak State ◽  
International Context ◽  
Elite Networks ◽  
The Face

This article argues that Moldova's weak state, tenuous elite networks, and polarized politics have provided key sources of democracy in the post-Soviet period. In the face of a weak civil society, severe economic decline, civil war, low income per capita, and an absence of a democratic history, Moldovan democracy in the 1990s was stronger than in any other non-Baltic, post-Soviet republic. The country is best understood not as a struggling or unconsolidated democracy but instead as a case of failed authoritarianism or “pluralism by default.” In cases of pluralism by default, democratic political competition endures not because civil society is strong or leaders democratic but because politicians are too polarized and the state too feeble to enforce authoritarian rule in a liberal international context. In such cases, the same factors that promote pluralism may also undermine governance and state viability.

Formative Justice: The Regulative Principle of Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Robbie McClintock
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Educational Effort ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Reflective Essay

Background/Context Concepts of justice relevant to making personal and public decisions about education. Purpose To clarify a concept of formative justice that persons and the public often ignore in making decisions about educational effort. Setting “The windmills of your mind.” Research Design Reflective essay. Conclusions/Recommendations • Problems of justice arise whenever persons and polities cannot have it all, whenever they must choose between competing “goods,” positive or negative. • Different types of justice arise because persons and polities have to make constrained choices between different types of goods—with distributive justice, they allocate scarce material goods and benefits among many claimants; with social justice, they reconcile conflicting rights and responsibilities; with retributive justice, they determine sanctions and punishments; and with formative justice, they channel effort to pursuing particular possibilities out of the many open to them. • Problems of formative justice arise because persons and polities always face the future and find more potentialities unfolding before them than they have the energy, time, ability, and wherewithal to fulfill. They must choose among their purposes and allocate effort and attention to pursuing their potentials. In doing so, they form their unfolding lives. • Conceptions of formative justice concern principles with which persons and polities choose their controlling aspirations and allocate effort towards their fulfillment. • Formative justice is difficult because persons and polities always face an indeterminate future, one fraught with uncertainties. In the face of indeterminacy, they must irrevocably make their formative choices, hoping these will prove both successful and sustainable. • Formative justice is important because persons and polities will suffer or enjoy, as the case may be, the capacities for feeling, thought, and action by which they live.

scholarly journals Setting up a community tuberculosis (TB) programme

2019 ◽  
pp. 334-349
Author(s):  
Ted Lankester
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Treatment Outcomes ◽  
Multidrug Resistant ◽  
Case Finding ◽  
Drug Resistant ◽  
Short Course ◽  
Directly Observed Treatment ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Control

This chapter describes the recent status, impact, and control of tuberculosis (TB) worldwide through the End TB strategy. It gives examples of how government and civil society programmes can work together, with the roles and tasks of each clearly defined. It gives examples of the many barriers to treatment. The chapter describes current methods of case finding and case holding, existing and new diagnostics, and the treatment of adults and children. It explains the categories for recording cases and of treatment outcomes. It outlines the community and clinic background to managing cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB, and of co-infection with HIV. It describes the ongoing value of the DOTS strategy (Directly Observed Treatment-short course) and the limited value of the current BCG vaccine. The chapter emphasizes ways to reduce infection such as strict control on tobacco and reducing household smoke.

scholarly journals The ambiguities of Brazil in the nuclear area and the Argentine "strategic patience” (2002-2010)

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Rogelio Suppo ◽  
Leandro Gavião
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Materials ◽  
Nuclear Area ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Control ◽  
Do So ◽  
Newspaper Articles

ABSTRACT This article discusses the ambiguities of Brazil regarding the nuclear area during the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. To do so, the text uses the speeches of important politicians and members of government bodies to analyze the erratic positioning of Brasília in the face of the commitments made with Argentina since the Quadripartite Agreement (1991) and the founding of the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC). Other source categories used are newspaper articles - Brazilian and international - and confidential files leaked by the non-governmental organization WikiLeaks. Finally, it is sought to evaluate the role of ABACC as an instrument to sustain the Argentinian “strategic patience” within the framework of the sensitive nuclear area.

“Peasants” Against Industrialization: Images of the Peasantry and Urban Activists’ Representations of the Rural

People's Car ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 131-152
Author(s):  
Sarasij Majumder
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Transnational Civil Society ◽  
Authentic Voice ◽  
Do So

This chapter shows how urban activists seek to construct an authentic peasant voice in order to make connections with a transnational civil society, which has its own agendas, views, and implicit or explicit interests. The construction of an “authentic voice” requires erasing differences within villages in the name of social justice. The strategies employed to do so lead to the silencing and exclusion of many poor and non-poor villagers, and even the protesters themselves, who stand to gain in various ways from the building of the factory.

Injustice, a Challenge to Social Cohesion

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Luis Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
The Face ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Huge Challenge

Chapter Two entitled “Injustice, a Challenge to Social Cohesion” highlights the limits of the authoritarian systems set up by the governments in the face of social transformations and political change. Demands for better governance and greater social justice clashed with state practices designed to produce security. Revolts and riots have structured relations between society and states, which each time have managed to restore order. The ability of these states to keep a lid on unrest caused them to be perceived and analysed as “robust”. The unexpected and unforeseeable outbreak of the Arab revolts represents a huge challenge for the countries of North Africa. Civil society expresses demands for a more just and more inclusive state. The Arab revolts weakened the repressive apparatuses and opened new opportunities for jihadi groups.

Aristotle on the Principle of Non-Contradiction

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Marc Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
First Principle ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many ◽  
Fourth Book ◽  
Do So

Not the least among the many puzzling features of the fourth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics is his discussion of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (hereafter ‘PNC’). Even leaving aside the obvious difficulty of determining what his arguments succeed in showing about PNC, we face the more fundamental problem of figuring out what he takes them to show. For he proceeds in such a way as to suggest that he is not always completely clear about what he is up to.Aristotle seems to be offering arguments in support of PNC. Yet to do so would be to try to demonstrate something he considers indemonstrable, to prove a first principle, to treat an ultimate explanans as also an explanandum – and to try to explain it. These maneuvers fly in the face of the teachings of the Organon, which allow no room for a demonstration, or proof (apodeixis), of PNC.

Educating Nurses for the Knowledge Economy

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Myrick
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Nursing Education ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Nursing Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Many ◽  
Educating Nurses

When discussing the education of nurses for the knowledge economy it must be assumed that nursing is influenced by multiple factors reflective of the broader society in which it exists. These factors include civil society, social justice, and the public sector, all of which converge to shape nursing education and ultimately nursing practice. Over the past decade in particular, these factors have been greatly affected by what may be described as the hegemonic influences of the knowledge economy and the philosophical assumptions on which it is based, influences that are impacting directly on how the health system is evolving. The author posits, therefore, that it is incumbent on faculty to educate future nurses for the knowledge economy and to provide them with appropriate tools with which to meet the many challenges that confront them today and will invariably continue to confront them in the coming decades.

The Helpful Brain? Translations of Neuroscience into Social Work

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret F Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
Critical Social Work ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Do So

Abstract What do the many translations of ‘the brain’ from the domain of neuroscience offer to social work researchers? Drawing upon disability studies and critical social work, this article examines trends and tensions across ‘neuro’ writing in social work journals and summarises some commonly recommended practices. Neuroscientific discourse has undeniable cultural influence and offers distinctive forms of evidence to social workers. Social work scholars have strategically translated neuroscience findings to access greater disciplinary status, to counter neo-liberal onslaughts on public services, to communicate on inter-disciplinary teams and to address calls for ‘new’ scholarship. At the same time, many writers readily acknowledge that they use neuroscience to justify or even revive well-established social work practices and theories. A unidirectional strategy of translation across disciplines comes with inherent risks of reinforcing hierarchy, ignoring social difference and undermining the value of social work research and practice. Neurodiversity discourse offers one example of ‘neuro’ argumentation where social justice and neuroscience have intertwined and may present an opportunity for a different type of social work translation. Social workers should be prepared to engage with neuroscience but must do so in ways that consistently reinforce social justice commitments and include a wide array of perspectives.

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