Time, Political Analogies and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

KronoScope ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heino Nyyssönen

AbstractThe paper focuses on one of the most debated events in Cold War Europe, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and how its memory has influenced Hungarian political thought. We follow the discussion until mid-1990s and study memory and analogy in politics. We examine analogy on the basis of the theory of new rhetoric and with the help of Reinhart Koselleck's writings. In new rhetoric, analogy is not an equality of two relations but belongs to associative strategies of argumentation. These strategies add together separate elements and construct arguments, which either increase of decrease the possibility of accepting the argument.For my approach I have separated two kinds of analogies: those, which contemporary political actors have made during the great moments of history, and those analogies found afterwards by different political actors. Finally, we discuss the temporal nature of the analogy itself. Although analogies depend on audiences, weak analogies also reveal a lack of political skills.The analogy of 1848 has been the most common in Hungary, but also other years, like 1919 and 1945, have been used in political argumentation. There is evidence, for example, of how Communists compared 1956 to 1919 to legitimize their political actions.

GEOgraphia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (41) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Elson Luciano Silva Pires ◽  
Lucas Labigalini Fuini ◽  
Wilson Bento Figueiredo Filho ◽  
Eugênio Lima Mendes

A palavra governança não é nova. Ela perpassa por diversos períodos da história e assume significados específicos em determinadas épocas e países. Atualmente, o conceito de governança designa todos os procedimentos institucionais das relações de poder e das formas de gestão públicas ou privadas, tanto formais como informais, que regem a ação política dos atores. O objetivo deste artigo é problematizar os fatores explicativos das teorias institucionalistas que tratam a governança territorial como uma condição necessária para estabelecer compromissos entre os atores, com vistas ao desenvolvimento econômico, social e político das metrópoles, das cidades e seus territórios locais e regionais. Enfrentar as lacunas do debate acadêmico e coadunar os conceitos da literatura internacional referente à governança territorial, em especial a de matriz francesa, com a nacional, são um dos principais contributos deste artigo. REVISITING TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE: INSTITUTIONAL DEVICES, INTERMEDIATE NOTIONS AND REGULATORY LEVELS Abstract The word governance is not new. It goes through different periods of history and takes specific meanings in certain times and countries. Currently, the concept of governance can be defined as institutional procedures of power relations and of public or private forms of management, which can be formal as well as informal, that govern political actions of political actors. The purpose of this article is to analyze the explanatory factors of institutionalist theories that approach territorial governance as a necessary condition to establish compromises among actors, seeking an economic, social, and political development of metropolis, cities, and their regional and local territories. One of the main contribution of this paper is to address the gaps in academic debate, and to relate national Brazilian concepts to international literature concerning territorial governance, in particular the French theoretical framework. Keywords: Institutional forms; territorial governance; modes of regulation. LA GOUVERNANCE TERRITORIALE REVISEE: DISPOSITIFS INSTITUTIONNELS, NOTIONS INTERMÉDIAIRES ET NIVEAUX DE RÉGULATION Resumé Le mot gouvernance n'est pas nouveau. Il traverse diverses périodes de l'histoire et prend des significations spécifiques à certains moments et pays. Actuellement, le concept de gouvernance désigne toutes les procédures institutionnelles de relations de pouvoir et de formes de gestion publiques ou privées, formelles ou informelles, qui régissent l'action politique des acteurs. L'objectif de cet article est de problématiser les facteurs explicatifs des théories institutionnalistes qui traitent la gouvernance territoriale comme une condition nécessaire pour établir des compromis entre les acteurs, en vue du développement économique, social et politique de la métropole, des villes et de leurs territoires locaux et régionaux. Faire face aux lacunes du débat académique en accord avec les concepts de la littérature internationale sur la gouvernance territoriale, notamment la matrice française, avec la matrice nationale, sont l'une des contributions majeures de cet article. Mots-clés: Formes institutionnelles; gouvernance territoriale; modes de régulations


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATRINA FORRESTER

Current interpretations of the political theory of Judith Shklar focus to a disabling extent on her short, late article “The Liberalism of Fear” (1989); commentators take this late essay as representative of her work as a whole and thus characterize her as an anti-totalitarian, Cold War liberal. Other interpretations situate her political thought alongside followers of John Rawls and liberal political philosophy. Challenging the centrality of fear in Shklar's thought, this essay examines her writings on utopian and normative thought, the role of history in political thinking and her notions of ordinary cruelty and injustice. In particular, it shifts emphasis away from an exclusive focus on her late writings in order to consider works published throughout her long career at Harvard University, from 1950 until her death in 1992. By surveying the range of Shklar's critical standpoints and concerns, it suggests that postwar American liberalism was not as monolithic as many interpreters have assumed. Through an examination of her attitudes towards her forebears and contemporaries, it shows why the dominant interpretations of Shklar—as anti-totalitarian émigré thinker, or normative liberal theorist—are flawed. In fact, Shklar moved restlessly between these two categories, and drew from each tradition. By thinking about both hope and memory, she bridged the gap between two distinct strands of postwar American liberalism.


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Kruke

From the beginning of the West German state, a lot of public opinion polling was done on the German question. The findings have been scrutinized carefully from the 1950s onward, but polls have always been taken at face value, as a mirror of society. In this analysis, polls are treated rather as an observation technique of empirical social research that composes a certain image of society and its public opinion. The entanglement of domestic and international politics is analyzed with respect to the use of surveys that were done around the two topics of Western integration and reunification that pinpoint the “functional entanglement” of domestic and international politics. The net of polling questions spun around these two terms constituted a complex setting for political actors. During the 1950s, surveys probed and ranked the fears and anxieties that characterized West Germans and helped to construct a certain kind of atmosphere that can be described as “Cold War angst.” These findings were taken as the basis for dealing with the dilemma of Germany caught between reunification and Western integration. The data and interpretations were converted into “security” as the overarching frame for international and domestic politics by the conservative government that lasted until the early 1960s.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-242
Author(s):  
JAMES POSKETT

AbstractWhat is the history of science? How has it changed over the course of the twentieth century? And what does the future hold for the discipline? This ‘Retrospect’ provides an introduction to the historiography of science as it developed in the Anglophone world. It begins with the foundation of the Cambridge History of Science Committee in the 1940s and ends with the growth of cultural history in the 2000s. At the broadest level, it emphasizes the need to consider the close relationship between history and the history of science. All too often the historiography of science is treated separately from history at large. But as this essay shows, these seemingly distinct fields often developed in relation to one another. This essay also reveals the ways in which Cold War politics shaped the history of science as a discipline. It then concludes by considering the future, suggesting that the history of science and the history of political thought would benefit from greater engagement with one another.


Author(s):  
Matthew John Paul Tan

This chapter will explore the varieties of political thought informed by divine revelation as understood in the Christian tradition. It will do so with reference to the metaphysical assumptions of what happens when transcendence meets history, and accordingly divide the inquiry into three archetypes. The first are the monists, for whom transcendence collapses into the temporal. The second are the dialecticians, for whom the uncrossable distinction between heaven and earth results in a struggle between the two. The third are the participationists, for whom the transcendent and the historical can harmoniously cohere through a ‘mediating third’ plane. For each mode, a brief sketch will be given of the writings of exemplary thinkers, and of the promises and pitfalls. In highlighting this variety, the aim of charting this map is to nuance the discussion currently taking place concerning the motivations and modus operandi of religiously informed political actors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 1007-1021 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOEL ISAAC

The world of grand strategy is not one to which intellectual historians have devoted a great deal of attention. Matters of interstate economic competition and imperial rivalry have, of course, long been at the center of histories of early modern political thought. Yet, when these currents in the history of political thought narrow into nineteenth-centuryrealpolitik, and then turn toward the professionalized contemporary discourses of international relations and war studies, intellectual historians have, for the most part, left the matter to the experts. The strategic maxims of Clausewitz and Liddell Hart may fascinate IR theorists, political scientists, and military historians, but they seldom fire the imaginations of tender-minded historians of ideas. The two books under review challenge such preconceptions. They ask us to consider the history of Cold War strategic thought in a wider conceptual frame. Buried in the history of strategy, they suggest, are some of the central themes of postwar social and political thought.


2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 2269-2292 ◽  
Author(s):  
JORG KUSTERMANS

AbstractRepublicanism is getting increasing attention in International Relations. Engaging Daniel Deudney'sRepublican Security Theory, it is argued that republicanism should be interpreted in ideological terms, that it is a polysemous tradition of political thought, and that it matters because it is socially embodied in world political practice. Special attention is given to republicanism's relationship to the question of technology. A short case study of the Cold War illustrates the central claims of the argument.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Levinger ◽  
Laura Roselle

This thematic issue addresses how strategic narratives affect international order. Strategic narratives are conceived of as stories with a political purpose or narratives used by political actors to affect the behavior of others. The articles in this issue address two significant areas important to the study of international relations: how strategic narratives support or undermine alliances, and how they affect norm formation and contestation. Within a post-Cold War world and in the midst of a changing media environment, strategic narratives affect how the world and its complex issues are understood. This special issue speaks to the difficulties associated with creating creative and committed international cooperation by noting how strategic narratives are working to shape the Post-Cold War international context.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Yue Chuen Lam-Knott

Hong Kong has been described as a city that prioritises socio-economic stability at the expense of political engagement. Despite recent protests —such as the 2003 demonstration with half a million people taking to the streets—that seemingly dispel such statements, Hong Kong youth activists claim that the city remains apolitical. How can we make sense of this paradox of seeing the protests on the streets of the city, with what is being said by these youths? In attempting to unravel this puzzle, this paper highlights the importance for anthropologists of understanding how politics is conceptualised amongst their informants, which in turn determines the peculiar manifestations of political actions in that societal context. This paper argues that in Hong Kong, there are discrepancies between youth activists and the general population in how politics is framed and situated in relation to everyday life. It is then revealed that contemporary mainstream attitudes towards politics are actually a product of the city’s colonial history. Finally, this paper will explore the sentiments (of indifference, discomfort, or frustration) youth activists and non-political individuals respectively harbour towards politics and political actors, and the obstacles dominant attitudes towards politics pose for youth activists and for anthropologists alike. 


2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK PITTAWAY

AbstractThis article examines the process of state reconstruction in Austria and Hungary's borderlands that followed the Second World War. This process of state reconstruction was also a process of pacification, as it represented an attempt to (re)build states on the foundations of the military settlement of the war. The construction of legitimate state authority was at its most successful on the Austrian side of the border, where political actors were able to gain legitimacy by creating a state that acted as an effective protector of the immediate demands of the local community for security from a variety of threats. On the Hungarian side of the border the state was implicated with some of the actors who were seen as threatening local communities, something that produced political polarisation. These differences set the stage for the transition from war to cold war in the borderlands.


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