scholarly journals ‘People’, Politicians and Populism

1984 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Canovan
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Political ◽  
True Blue ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Ideal

IF THE ZOOLOGISTS ARE TO BE BELIEVED, THIS WORLD appears very different to members of different species of animals. Flowers conceal patterns and markings that are visible only to insects; dogs inhabit a world reeking with enticing scents; the bats' Lebenswelt echoes with highly significant squeaks. Something rather similar is true of political animals as well. The political world that faces the true-blue Tory has contours different from those that present themselves to the militant socialist, while what the liberal sees as the manifest data of politics is different again. Each of them, contemplating the common political world, has his attention caught and held by certain phenomena beside which others fade into insignificance. It is not surprising, therefore, that each has resort to a different key concept to sum up his experience. For the ideal-typical conservative, the basic datum of political experience is the totality of the historic political community, the nation. Like Rousseau's patriot, from the moment he opens his eyes he sees his country, and to the day of his death he never sees anything else. The socialist, by contrast, his attention held by a different range of experiences, wonders how anyone can fad to recognize the importance of social classes and the rift between them, while the liberal in his turn suspects the others of being deliberately obtuse when they refuse to see that distinct and different individuals are the basic components of political reality.

Searching for Political Parties in the Past

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Common

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.

Neurointerventions, Morality, and Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clayton ◽  
Andres Moles
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Moral Constraint ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Moral Limits

Is the political community morally permitted to use neurointerventions to improve the moral conduct of children? Putting aside difficult questions concerning the institutionalization of moral enhancement, the authors address this question, first, by arguing that is not, in itself, always morally impermissible for the community to impose neurointerventions on adults. Although certain ideals, such as the ideal of individual autonomy, limit the permissible employment of neurointerventions, they do not generate a moral constraint that always forbids their use. Thereafter, they argue that because young children lack certain moral capacities that adults possess, the moral limits that pertain to the use of neurointerventions to improve their moral behaviour are, in principle, less restrictive than they are for adults.

Neuplatonische politische Philosophie in der Rede Περὶ βασιλείας des Synesios von Kyrene

Elenchos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
Michael Schramm
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract This paper argues that Synesios’ De regno is a mirror for princes and a splendid example of Neoplatonic political philosophy. It is based on Plato’s Politeia and its model of philosopher-kingship. Synesios makes his audience compare the current political reality with the ideal of the philosopher-kings, who are the image of the transcendent god in the political realm. In doing so he recommends political virtue in general, especially phronesis and sophrosyne. Particularly he argues for reforming the recruitment of military and civil officials with reference to Plato’s concept of friendship in the Politeia.

Contingency and responsibility in Confucian political theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 615-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Common

In this article I investigate the Confucian sense of responsibility from the framework of “moral economy,” understood as a causal relationship between one’s virtue and non-moral goods including political position/success, and “contingency,” the failure of moral economy, and argue that early Confucians’ astute understanding of the contingent nature of the political world enabled them to subscribe to the non-causal sense of responsibility. Contrary to the common argument that Heaven was invoked by the Confucians in order to shield themselves from responsibility for their political failures, I argue that they imposed a more expanded sense of responsibility both on them and on the rulers, largely preoccupied with realpolitik. In their effort to restore moral economy between the ruler’s virtue and his political position in particular, I show Confucians engaged in what I call reverse moral economy, at the heart of which was to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of political power.

Reading Hobbes’s Sovereign into a Burmese Narrative of Police Torture

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Nick Cheesman
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout February 2012, a court sitting at Myanmar’s central prison recorded a defendant’s narrative of torture by policemen to have him confess to a bombing two years prior. How was this record made possible? What does the narrative reveal about the relationship of police torturers to the political community giving them authority to act? Working from Agamben’s intuition that in the moment of violence the policeman occupies an area symmetrical to the sovereign, inasmuch as his use of violence is justified in the name of public order, I suggest the account of police torture in this case can be explained in terms of Hobbes’s theory of attributed action. Like Hobbes’s sovereign, the Burmese policemen had the prerogative to decide when and how to use violence against the detained subject on behalf of the state. That the defendant could later recount to a judge the torture done to him was only because he lacked standing to lay claims against sovereign police, who he himself, as a member of the political community, had authorised. Ironically, the record of his narrative was possible precisely because his claims were without efficacy.

Permissive Constitutions, Democracy, and Religious Freedom in India, Indonesia, Israel, and Turkey

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Lerner
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Deep Disagreement ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
Liberal Constitutionalism ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Ideal

The article addresses the question of what role formal constitutions play in mitigating intense conflicts over the religious character of the state. In contrast to common views in constitutional and political scholarship, it demonstrates that the ideal of liberal constitutionalism is not compatible with the political reality and types of conflicts that characterize religiously divided societies. Analyzing four processes of constitution drafting in which issues of religious law and religious identity were at the heart of the debate—India, Indonesia, Israel, and Turkey—it argues that under deep disagreement over the state's religious character, the drafters adopt either a permissive or a restrictive constitutional approach. While the former implies strategies of constitutional ambiguity, ambivalence, and avoidance in order to allow the political system greater flexibility in future decision making on religion-state relations, the latter approach uses repressive constitutional constraints designed to limit the range of possibilities available to future decision makers. The article further explores the long-term consequences of the two approaches and argues that (1) permissive constitutional arrangements, more than restrictive arrangements, are likely to promote the democratic functioning of future governments; and that (2) permissive constitutional arrangements may facilitate greater freedom of religion, but they are also likely to lead to greater restrictions on freedom from religion, compared with restrictive constitutions.

scholarly journals Secular Formatting of the Sacred

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-182
Author(s):  
Marius Timmann Mjaaland
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Axial Age ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract Whereas Samuel Moyn has argued that human rights represent the last utopia, sociologist Hans Joas suggests that the modern history of human rights represents a critical alternative to the common theory of secularization understood as disenchantment (Weber). In Joas’s reading, the political and social emphasis on human rights contributes to a sacralization of the person, not only understood as utopia, but also as societal ideal. Following Durkheim, Joas understands the sacred within the society as the continuous process of refashioning the ideal society within the real society. Although acknowledging Joas’s critique of Weber, the author is more critical of his idealization of universal human rights and his affirmative genealogy of this ideal running back to the so-called Axial Age. Mjaaland argues that the normative and formative functions of human rights are better served by a suspicious genealogy of morals, taking also the problematic aspects of human rights policy into account, including its dependence on new forms of violence and cruelty. He concludes that a more modest and pragmatic understanding of human rights may therefore strengthen rather than weaken their authority and future influence.

scholarly journals The Indian Republic as Governance Guru to the European Union: Does the Subcontinent Offer the Continent a Model for Managing Diversity?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm MacLaren
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Treaty ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Managing Diversity ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
The Common

The development and working of governance in post-colonial India provides insights into and lessons for the actual European project of integration. The Republic’s founders coined the slogan ‘unity in diversity’, and their creation has enjoyed considerable (unexpected) success in managing linguistic, religious, ethnic, and territorial diversities. In contrast, the Union’s leaders are still struggling to constitute a political community, as the failure of the draft constitutional treaty made clear.Considering wider dimensions of managing cultural diversity, the paper follows the thesis that in political integration projects, law matters and politics does too, but that the political culture prevailing matters most. The success (or failure) of such attempts is ultimately determined not by the framework rules, institutions, and procedures but by the common (or divergent) values, attitudes, and goals of the political actors involved.

Comedy in Callipolis: Animal Imagery in the Republic

1978 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 888-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Animal Imagery ◽  
Animal Images ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City ◽  
The Ideal

The political society founded by Socrates in the Republic has been seen by many as Plato's conception of the ideal political community, his Callipolis. However, a study of the language used by Socrates as he builds his perfect city reveals an unusually heavy concentration of animal images. This language seems to undercut the ostensible perfection of Socrates' city and illustrates rather its connections to the comic world of Aristophanes, whose comedy the Birds offers the model according to which the Republic is built. It is suggested that the city of the Republic is comic and ugly, indicating the limitations of politics rather than its potentialities. The Republic argues for the need to reorient the concept of justice away from social life and towards the individual. Ultimately, the Republic suggests that the notion of social justice is laughable and fit for the comic Stage.

Is architecture relevant for political theory?

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110636
Author(s):  
Bart van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common ◽  
Build Environment

Is architecture relevant for political theory? That is the key question that structures this excellent collection Political Theory and Architecture, although a number of essays fit a broader formulated theme better, namely, concerning the political relevance of the organization and design of our built environment more generally, including architecture but also spatial planning and urban design. The collection demonstrates that our build environment is not merely a passive backdrop to a political community, but actively shapes aspects of our common political life. This constitutive nature of our built environment figures in many different guises throughout this volume. In this review article, I discuss some of these and conclude that concerns about the ‘common good’ and hence about the discipline of political theory should take reflections on urban design, planning, and architecture into account.

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