A Supplementary Source for the Study of Mamluk Social History: The Taqārīẓ

Arabica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 146-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amalia Levanoni
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Large Collection ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Social Insecurity ◽  
Academic Recognition

Abstract The taqārīẓ were part of an established system of academic recognition and the ʿulamāʾ patronage networks and at times, they could also be a powerful satirical weapon used by the learned elite members to denigrate and exclude a colleague. The large collection of the satire taqārīẓ written for the panegyric Biography composed in 819/1416 by Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Nāhiḍ for the Mamluk sultan al-Muʾayyad Šayḫ is explored in this article as a supplementary source to the historical narratives for the study of the ʿulamāʾ milieu during the strained period of the transition from Turkish to Circassian sultanate (784/1382). Placing these taqārīẓ in the context of the increasing social insecurity entailed by the political reshuffles, reveals the growing anxiety of the incumbent learned elites over their positions and status in the administration of justice, the academe (madāris) and the waqf institution—the spheres where they exercised their hegemony of knowledge and religious power—and the strategies they adopted for their social survival.

Is political engagement by constitutional monarchs compatible with democracy?

2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112199169
Author(s):  
Kana Inata
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Public Approval ◽  
Do So

Constitutional monarchies have proved to be resilient, and some have made substantive political interventions even though their positions are mostly hereditary, without granted constitutional channels to do so. This article examines how constitutional monarchs can influence political affairs and what impact royal intervention can have on politics. I argue that constitutional monarchs affect politics indirectly by influencing the preferences of the public who have de jure power to influence political leaders. The analyses herein show that constitutional monarchs do not indiscriminately intervene in politics, but their decisions to intervene reflect the public’s preferences. First, constitutional monarchs with little public approval become self-restraining and do not attempt to assert their political preferences. Second, they are more likely to intervene in politics when the public is less satisfied about the incumbent government. These findings are illustrated with historical narratives regarding the political involvement of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand in the 2000s.

Managing the Health of Chosŏn Kings: Illness and Treatment in the Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wung Seok Cha
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Mental Status ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Korean Language ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Choson Dynasty ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light

TheSŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi (Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat)is one of the major chronicles of the events of the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910). Although the records prior to the year 1622 are no longer extant, the remaining records from the years 1623 to 1910 meticulously recount the daily activities of the reigning Chosŏn kings, including copious information on their physical and mental status. Because the king’s health was considered as important as other official affairs in many respects, detailed records were kept of royal ailments and how court doctors treated them. This article surveys the state of Korean-language scholarship on the medical content of theDaily Recordsand presents selected translations to demonstrate how this valuable historical source can shed light on both the social history of Chosŏn medicine and the political importance of kingly health at the Chosŏn court.

The Political role of the judiciary : The Belgian case

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-384
Author(s):  
Lode Van Outrive
Keyword(s):  
Easy Access ◽  
The Political ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Selection System ◽  
Advisory Body ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
External Conditions ◽  
Recruitment And Selection

We set out by tracking the political vicissitudes of the administration of justice and their connections with a range of phenomena: the neglect by politicians; a series of events and scandals and the very curious reactions of the judicial apparatus; several parliamentary investigation commissions without much effect. Then we take a critical look at partisan politicisation of the magistrature: negative evalution of their output thrives to it; but there are also partisan appointments and promotions, even absence and refusal of training. Many contextual factors hinder a normal, acceptable process of politicisation: over- and underregulation, bad legislation, misconception on contra! over the administration of justice and over judges, non-democratic decisionmaking within the organisation of the magistrature, the development of wrong relationship inside the trias politica; but also other more external conditions were not met neither.  We wind up with an examination of the assesment of recent governmental proposals: an improvement of criminal and judicial inquiries; foundation of a national advisory body for the magistrature; simplification of the legislation; modernisation of the courts activities; a more objective recruitment and selection system; more easy access to justice etc. The question raises as to wether it suffices to tinker with the sy stem of the administration of justice alone ... Between the Belgian and the Italian situations are similarities and relevant differences. 

Aristotle’s Mean in Politics and Religion

DIALOGO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Spyridon Stelios ◽  
Alexia Dotsi
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Doctrine Of The Mean ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Collective Processes ◽  
Cultural Public Sphere ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Witch Hunts

In this paper, we investigate the political and religious projection of Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean. According to Aristotle and his virtue ethics theory, humans succeed the mean when they acknowledge in what they are physically inclined to. If someone knows towards where she is deviating, either in terms of exaggeration or understatement, then she can, at some point, achieve the mean as the end goal of ethical virtue. But what if these moral evaluations refer to collective processes, such as politics, culture and religion? In this case, the notion of “intermediate” could be paralleled with the notion of ‘optimized’. A way of locating the optimized point on the political or cultural public sphere is to acknowledge in what people are politically or culturally inclined to. This seems to be guided by their cultural traditions, political history and aims. In politics and modern democracies, the doctrine may be applied in virtues, such as justice. Excess in the administration of justice causes "witch hunts" and deficiency lawlessness. Respectively, in today’s religious-oriented societies - countries that could be ranked according to their religiosity – where there is little tolerance in their permissible cultural patterns, the application of Aristotle’s mean reveals interesting findings. More specifically, in the case of the virtue of honor, the excess may lead to honor crimes and deficiency to contempt.

FISCAL EQUIVALENCE: PRINCIPLE AND PREDATION IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 244-265
Author(s):  
Emily C. Skarbek
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Equivalence Principle ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Internal Pressures ◽  
And Control

AbstractFiscal equivalence in the public administration of justice requires local police and courts to be financed exclusively by the populations that benefit from their services. Within a polycentric framework, broad based taxation to achieve fiscal equivalence is a desirable principle of public finance because it conceptually allows for the provision of justice to be determined by constituent’s preferences, and increases the political accountability of service providers to constituents. However, the overproduction of justice services can readily occur when the benefits of the justice system are not enjoyed equally. Paradoxically, the same properties that make fiscal equivalence desirable by imposing restraint and control between constituents and local government also create internal pressures for agents of the state to engage in predatory, revenue-generating behavior.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter provides an overview of legal history research. An attorney might conduct legal history research if the law at question in a legal dispute is very old: the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are well over two hundred years old. Historical research also comes into play when the question at issue is what the law was at a certain time in the past. Ultimately, law plays an important part in the political and social history of the United States. As such, researchers interested in almost every aspect of American life will have occasion to use legal materials. The chapter then describes the U.S. legal system and legal authority, and offers six points to consider in approaching a historical legal research project.

scholarly journals Out of Bounds: Confronting War Crimes and the Breakdown of Justice with Contemporary Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Catherine Bernard
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Marc Quinn ◽  
The Aesthetic

Recent art has turned to judiciary and extra-judiciary practices, specifically in the context of international conflicts, in order to assert art’s political accountability and relevance to our capacity to historicise the present. The war in Iraq inspired works that directly address issues of representation and remediation, such as Marc Quinn’s Mirage (2008), in which the aesthetic experience opens onto an ambiguous experience of the breakdown of justice. Other works have chosen to turn carceral space itself into the site of a collective remembering that harnesses affect to a critical reflection on the administration of justice, on assent and dissent. This article will turn to key works by Marc Quinn and Trevor Paglen that confront extra-judiciary malpractices, but also to recent collective art projects involving an interdisciplinary take on the experience of imprisonment, such as Inside. Artists and Writers in Reading Prison (2016), in which artists of all backgrounds responded to Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis on the very premises of Wilde’s incarceration, as well as the work of 2019 Turner Prize co-recipient: Jordanian sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan whose recent works rely on testimonies from Syrian detainees and probe the political pragmatics of aural art. All these works have turned to the document—literary, visual, aural—to reflect on the process of experiential mediation. How does the experience of imprisonment, or extra-judiciary malpractices, come to the spectator? How are they read, heard, interpreted, remediated? The article ponders the remediation and displacement of aesthetic experience itself and the “response-ability”—following Donna Haraway’s coinage—of such a repoliticised embodied experience. It will assess the way by which such interdisciplinary works rethink the poetics of the documentary for an embodied intellection of justice—and injustice—in the present.

“The Burdens of Urban History”: Comment

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Katznelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Urban History ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The City

How, if at all, can studies of the city help us understand the distinctive qualities of the American regime? In “The Burdens of Urban History,” which refines and elaborates his earlier paper “The Problem of the Political in Recent American Urban History,” Terrence McDonald, a historian who has written on urban fiscal policy and conflict, argues that students of the city have focused their work too narrowly on bosses and machines, patronage and pluralism. In so doing, they have obscured other bases of politics and conflict, and, trapped by liberal categories of analysis, they have perpetuated a self-satisfied, even celebratory, portrait of American politics and society. This unfortunate directionality to urban research in some measure has been unwitting because historians and social scientists have been unreflective about the genealogies, and mutual borrowings, of their disciplines. Even recent critical scholarship in the new social history and in the social sciences under the banner of “bringing the state back in” suffers from these defects. As a result, these treatments of state and society relationships, and of the themes that appear under the rubric of American “exceptionalism,” are characterized by an epistemological mish-mash, a contraction of analytical vision, and an unintended acquiescence in the self-satisfied cheerleading of the academy that began in the postwar years.

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