Positive Freedom and the Citizen in Athens

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi T. Campa
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Negative Freedom ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Democratic Citizen ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract Freedom in democratic Athens is often understood as consisting of positive freedom in the public sphere in the form of political participation and negative freedom in the private sphere in the form of citizens doing ‘whatever they wish’. The original meaning of positive freedom, though, is more akin to self-mastery than political participation. By looking at phrases describing Athenians’ ability to do ‘whatever they wish’ from Herodotus to Aristotle, this article argues that the phrases instead express individual positive freedom in both private and public spheres. The democratic citizen is free because he is the author of his own actions. Individual autonomy stands in contrast to Spartan and Persian definitions of freedom, which focus on the external, negative freedom of the state. In addition to an ideological distinction, positive freedom also gives rise to the principle of voluntarism.

Freedom’s children in protest movements: Private and public in the socialization of young Russian and Ukrainian activists

2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Erpyleva
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article deals with the problem of political participation and public sphere learning by adolescents during the mass protests in contemporary Russia and Ukraine. Referring to theories of contentious politics and the public sphere in the post-communist world, the author highlights the debate around the relations between private and public in this context: is the value of public participation formed in the private sphere and then translated into a public one? Or rather, is the public realm something opposite to the private? Using in-depth biographical interviews with the adolescents participating in the Bolotnaya and Maidan movements, the author considers this dilemma through the lens of activists’ socialization. The analysis discovers that there is no direct connection between the values of private independence and public freedom during the growing-up process of adolescent activists. The values of private independence appropriated by Russian adolescents do not automatically translate into practices in the public sphere, and, conversely, Ukrainian activists strongly adhere to an ethic of political freedom, but to do it they prefer to break with the values of the private sphere rather than transfer them into politics. To conclude, the author discusses some implications of the analysis of political participation of adolescents on how notions of private and public are composed in Russia and Ukraine.

The Portable Home: The Domestication of Public Space

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishan Kumar ◽  
Ekaterina Makarova
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Privileged Site

Much commentary indicates that, starting from the 19th century, the home has become the privileged site of private life. In doing so it has established an increasingly rigid separation between the private and public spheres. This article does not disagree with this basic conviction. But we argue that, in more recent times, there has been a further development, in that the private life of the home has been carried into the public sphere—what we call “the domestication of public space.” This has led to a further attenuation of public life, especially as regards sociability. It has also increased the perception that what is required is a better “balance” between public and private. We argue that this misconstrues the nature of the relation of public to private in those periods that attained the greatest degree of sociability, and that not “balance” but “reciprocity” is the desired condition.

scholarly journals Survivors, Not Victims! The Problem of the Rehabilitation of Sexually Assaulted Women

1970 ◽  
pp. 37-42
Author(s):  
Amal Elmohandes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Sexually Abused ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere

In Egypt, girls and women, in the private and public spheres, face varied and numerous forms of sexual violence. In the public sphere, they are exposed to violence, be they activists, human rights defenders, or normal citizens. They are also at risk as they walk through the streets and squares to take the metro, on their way to their schools and universities, or in their places of work. As soon as one of them undergoes a virginity test, is sexually abused, raped, or assaulted, gang-raped, vaginally examined, orally or anally raped, or sexually harassed, everybody, be it the family, friends, the media, medical professionals, or the judiciary rush to label or stigmatize her as a “victim”.

Multicultural differences in the public sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-300
Author(s):  
Rudi Visker
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Academic Question ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Great Length ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
Private Realm ◽  
The Public Sphere

The present article plays off two conceptions of the public sphere against one another. The first one sees in it a sign of what is already present in the private sphere, whereas the second regards it as a symbol that has to inscribe its own symbolic force into the private realm. That this is by no means a mere academic question becomes obvious by way of several examples analyzed at great length: the institution of mourning and the discussion about the presence of religious symbols in the public sphere. An argument for considering the Muslim veil as a protection against the divine is put forward in an attempt to clarify the presuppositions of our current predisposal against it. Ultimately, pluralism should perhaps not just be taken to refer only to the presence of others outside of us who we are able to numerically count, but might be the more difficult plight of having to cope with an otherness within each of us. Should the latter be the case, then we are in need of a public sphere where we can leave behind and thus honor what is not only differentiating us from others but also from ourselves.

Privatpolitik und Aufklärung: Johann Christoph Gottscheds Veröffentlichungsstrategie

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-43
Author(s):  
Nadja Reinhard
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Academic Education ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Female Authorship ◽  
Education Of Women ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Scientific Integration

Abstract According to Jürgen Habermas, equality amongst those of unequal social standing in 18th-century society was limited to the private sphere. Though Gottsched shows how to use this sphere strategically for private policy and cooperation, he knows how to modify his publication strategies wisely in order to achieve the greatest and best possible effectiveness in his attempt to popularise Enlightenment. By his Moralische Wochenschriften as well as by his more popular way of academic writing for students he spreads controversial ideas such as theoretical and practical reason’s primacy over theologic argumentations, the academic education of women, or female authorship. Yet, he does so prudently and expertly uses the opportunities offered by publishing anonymously or under a pseudonym to support scientific integration of women. Gottsched relied upon a variety of rhetorical strategies to introduce controversial ideas to the broader public without embracing them openly. Employing different strategies of publication, he pursued his agenda as a moral educator, promoted emancipation from religious authorities, and advanced his own brand of cultural nationalism in order to unfold and popularise the German literary tradition. He thus significantly contributed to the structural transformation of the public sphere as described by Heinrich Bosse.

Fighting Corruption

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Arena
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Republican Rome ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Late Roman

Corruption was seen as a major factor in the collapse of Republican Rome, as Valentina Arena’s subsequent essay “Fighting Corruption: Political Thought and Practice in the Late Roman Republic” argues. It was in reaction to this perception of the Republic’s political fortunes that an array of legislative and institutional measures were established and continually reformed to become more effective. What this chapter shows is that, as in Greece, the public sphere was distinct from the private sphere and, importantly, it was within this distinction that the foundations of anticorruption measures lay. Moreover, it is difficult to defend the existence of a major disjuncture between moralistic discourses and legal-political institutions designed to patrol the public/private divide: both were part of the same discourse and strategy to curb corruption and improve government.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

scholarly journals Klummen som politisk barometer

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Rimestad
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Two Parameters

Columns generally take up a lot of space in the media. But what can an employed journalist write in his column? How is this particular freedom managed and shaped? In this article the columns written by journalists working for Berlingske Tidende are analyzed. The analysis covers two months before and after substantial changes in the paper in 2003. Two parameters are used in the analysis: Political: Is the column pro-government, anti-government, apolitical or mixed. And what sphere does the column cover: Does the column take place in the private sphere or the public sphere? Finally the changes in the period are discussed. But initially the column as a genre is defined.

scholarly journals The Two-Part Gender Revolution, Women’s Second Shift and Changing Cohort Fertility

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomas Frejka ◽  
Frances Goldscheider ◽  
Trude Lappegård
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Public ◽  
Employed Mothers ◽  
Cohort Fertility ◽  
Second Shift ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Gender Revolution

The two parts of the gender revolution have been evolving side by side at least since the 1960s. The first part, women’s entry into the public sphere, proceeded faster than the second part, men’s entry into the private sphere. Consequently, many employed mothers have carried a greater burden of paid and unpaid family support than fathers throughout the second half of the 20th century. This constituted women’s “second shift,” depressing fertility. A central focus of this paper is to establish second shift trends during the second half of the 20th century and their effects on fertility. Our analyses are based on data on cohort fertility, male and female labor force participation, and male and female domestic hours worked from 11 countries in Northern Europe, Western/central Europe, Southern Europe, and North America between 1960/70 and 2000/2014. We find that the gender revolution had not generated a turnaround, i.e. an increase in cohort fertility, by the end of the 20th century. Nevertheless, wherever the gender revolution has made progress in reducing women’s second shift, cohort fertility declined the least; where the second shift is large and/or has not been reduced, cohort fertility has declined the most.

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