Digital Modes of Exchange: Structural Relations of Commodity, Control, and Community

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 110-134
Author(s):  
Martin Roth
Keyword(s):  
Present Status ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Heuristic Model ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Structural Relations ◽  
Space Data ◽  
State Form

Abstract In this article, I perceive digital space as a space structured by different and, at the same time, related modes of exchange. Drawing on Karatani Kōjin’s model of ‘exchange’, I scrutinize capitalist exchange in digital space, data-based control on platforms, and the conditions of community in a filtered digital reality. The analysis indicates a shift in the structure of exchange in digital space. In Karatani’s analysis, capital, nation, and state form a strong alliance that maintains the present status quo. Although this holds true for digital space, the emphasis is much more on corporate and thus capitalist actors, which, in some cases, replace the state and interfere with the emergence of imagined communities. By relating the various actors and dimensions, I provide a heuristic model for the structure of digital space.

scholarly journals The natural duty of justice in non-ideal circumstances: On the moral demands of institution building and reform

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Status

Principles of distributive justice bind macro-level institutional agents, like the state. But what does justice require in non-ideal circumstances, where institutional agents are unjust or do not exist in the first place? Many answer by invoking Rawls's natural duty ‘to further just arrangements not yet established’, treating it as a ‘normative bridge’ between institutional demands of distributive justice and individual responsibilities in non-ideal circumstances. I argue that this response strategy is unsuccessful. I show that the more unjust the status quo is due to non-compliance, the less demanding the natural duty of justice becomes. I conclude that, in non-ideal circumstances, the bulk of the normative work is done by another natural duty: that of beneficence. This conclusion has significant implications for how we conceptualize our political responsibilities in non-ideal circumstances, and cautions us against the tendency – common in contemporary political theory – to answer all high-stakes normative questions under the rubric of justice.

Re-enacting the international order, or: why the Syrian state did not disappear

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Janis Grzybowski
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
International Order ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
New States ◽  
Regime Support ◽  
Rare Opportunity ◽  
State Form

Abstract At the height of the Syrian civil war, many observers argued that the Syrian state was collapsing, fragmenting, or dissolving. Yet, it never actually vanished. Revisiting the rising challenges to the Syrian state since 2011 – from internal collapse through external fragmentation to its looming dissolution by the ‘Islamic State’ – provides a rare opportunity to investigate the re-enactment of both statehood and international order in crisis. Indeed, what distinguishes the challenges posed to Syria, and Iraq, from others in the region and beyond is that their potential dissolution was regarded as a threat not merely to a – despised – dictatorial regime, or a particular state, but to the state-based international order itself. Regimes fall and states ‘collapse’ internally or are replaced by new states, but the international order is fundamentally questioned only where the territorially delineated state form is contested by an alternative. The article argues that the Syrian state survived not simply due to its legal sovereignty or foreign regime support, but also because states that backed the rebellion, fearing the vanishing of the Syrian nation-state in a transnational jihadist ‘caliphate’, came to prefer its persistence under Assad. The re-enactment of states and of the international order are thus ultimately linked.

Influence of digitalization on the public policy forming in Ukraine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Kalashnyk
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The State ◽  
Digital Society ◽  
Administrative Services ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Technical Literacy ◽  
Ukrainian Society

Problem setting. The COVID-19 pandemic, global quarantine, quarantine restrictions created the conditions for society to react quickly. Digital technologies are now being used more intensively, and the public administration sector is no exception. At the same time, the country's development requires systematic strategic and tactical decisions that will accelerate the introduction of modern digital technologies in all spheres of Ukrainian society, also forming and implementation of public policy at various levels of government. The analysis of recent researches and publications. Problems of digital society are studied by such Ukrainian scientists as O. Klepanchuk, O. Petryk, S. Lisovsky, S. Romanyuk, L. Rudenko (the emphasis – achieving by Ukraine the goals of sustainable development, where the development of the digital society is considered as one of the tools); issues of implementation of e-government and e-democracy are studied by A. Emelyanova, S. Loboyko, O. Maevska, A. Semenchenko, V. Dreshpak; research on the implementation of public policy in a particular area, including in the field of justice and the provision of administrative services, are among the research interests of Y. Starylov, J. Sobko, I. Markvych and others. Among foreign researchers, these issues are being investigated by C. Emmanuelli, N. Jain, N. Maechler, D. Malfara etc. Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem: the main contradictions, trends, problems and prospects for the provision of digital public services, based on the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, namely – the application of quarantine restrictions; influence of digitalization on the public policy forming in Ukraine. Paper main body. The article analyzes the problems inherent in modern Ukrainian society in connection with the rapid digitalization processes, that have taken place over the past year. The influence of digitalization on the forming and implementation of public policy is considered on the example of the activity of the Ministry of justice of Ukraine. Based on the results of a survey of civil servants and local government officials conducted by the author, the main trends, problems and prospects for providing public services online are identified. 2020 turned out to be the crisis year for all mankind on the one hand, and on the other hand – it encouraged the rapid development of certain industries, including the field of digital transformation. In public administration, this has been embodied in promoting the use of digital services and governance platforms. In the direction of forming and implementation of justice state policy main efforts are aimed at building online interaction between citizens and the state, reducing the number of paper documents, more efficient administration of open state registers, ensuring control at each step of citizens' appeals, reducing corruption risks. minimization of the human factor in the processes of providing administrative services. The author conducted the survey among students of the Lviv Regional Institute for Public Administration of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine on the provision of administrative services online. 66 applicants from eight regions of Ukraine were involved in the survey. The question was asked: what hinders the development of administrative services online? Among the answers, the most common are (in order from most popular to least): low technical literacy of service consumers; technical unpreparedness of networks;  unpreparedness of the citizens; unpreparedness of officials; insecurity of the information processed; lack of habit to use online;   distrust to the state. Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Contradictions of the digital society development in Ukraine include: the digital divide (the gap in the level of digital equipment); technological unemployment; digital dependence and digital control; digital opportunities for crime; unlimited digital space and its content; the need for large-scale efforts and resources to address the digital space, and needs will only increase; unavailability of information created by bodies-not information managers; form of obtaining information, information is created or obtained in a form unsuitable for machine processing; method of information processing – non-interoperability of data sets from different managers. Among the factors that will determine digitalization processes on the public policy forming in Ukraine, we consider: increasing the technical literacy of service consumers; improving the technical readiness of networks; work with the population to promote the tools of consumption of administrative services online; training of officials to work in the digital space; taking measures to protect information held by the authorities; forming the habit of using online in the field of forming and implementation the public policy; increasing the level of trust to the state.

scholarly journals Whom is political science for?

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 4-8
Author(s):  
Andrea Theocharis ◽  
Marcus Graetsch
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Political Science ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Status ◽  
Internet Discussion

We all study political science, but - what do we actually do here anyway? This essay expresses our thoughts about our subject. The everyday life in University doesn’t seem to give enough space for questioning what is this all about. Maybe a debate on that issue does not exist extensively because of fears of the loss of entitlement. The aim of this essay is to support the heightening of student’s awareness about the status quo of research and teaching in political science as we can judge it from our modest experiences. Trying to get to the basis of such a problem is not easy. The things here written are surely not the state of the art, but they could shine a better light on the problem what had been called the 'politics of political science' in an earlier Internet discussion on the IAPSS website. This paper should be understood as a start for a discussion, where we all can express our surely different experiences and ideas.

The Undecidable and the Fugitive: "Mille Plateaux" and the State-Form

SubStance ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Surin
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
State Form

The Question of Conscience in Why am I Doing This?

2021 ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
ADEYEMI AMOS ADEGBOYEGA
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
The Status ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
State Of Affairs

Greatly concerned and obsessed with the state of affairs in the country, literary artists more often than not, call to conscience the sensibilities of their audience, politicians inclusive. Against the prebendal nature of politics which is characterized by different anarchist tendencies in Nigeria, literary artists find justification for their craft as they seek ultimately to re-organize the society and confront its perils. This is the crux of this study. My concern is to rationalize Abubakar Gimba’s Why am I Doing This? banking on the interrogative undertone of the title, a variation from the norm. This interrogative undertone as will be explicated herein questions the rationalities – of the author and the actors in his observations as documented. Four essays from the collection were purposively sampled to demonstrate this. Deploying the literary tool of postcolonialism, this study a critical qualitative analysis submits that Abubakar Gimba laments the anathema and apathy that pervades the Nigerian society despite the professed democratic system of governance. He unveils the hidden and sad truths of modern Nigeria in its raw and naked form. These truths contradict her democracy. It is against this that Gimba hopes for a change in the status-quo and modus operandi of statecraft.

Посткапитализм: конфликты в цифровом обществе

2017 ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Е. И. Наумова
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Internet Platform ◽  
The Law ◽  
Collective Production

This article is about the problem of conflict in the frame of the formation and development postcapitalist tendencies in society. The result of the introduction of digital technologies in economic is the formation of a number of new types of products — information, knowledge, communication. The non-material type of the product doesn’t keep within the settled and a little mobile laws of material economy, that’s why the law of cost and the law of the surplus value need revision. The Internet as a platform for free exchange and distribution of information and knowledges appears the place of deployment of the conflicts between capitalist monopoles, the state and Internet users. It doesn’t exist accurate criteria, methodology and the theory which allow to create a clear boundary between «piracy» and the possibility of free distribution of information in network space. The ideology of Open Source calls into the question copyright and creates prerequisites for revision of the intellectual property rights concerning a digital product. Monetization of knowledge, information, communication in digital space conducts to the fact that the Internet becomes the additional platform for the generation of profit for the monopolistic corporations. Whereas there is a possibility for using an Internet platform as powerful resource for cooperation, mutual aid and collective production of innovations necessary for development of society. The conflict between capitalist corporations, the state and users can be resolved in case of revision the economic and precepts of law in relation to the digital space with the purpose to draw line between lawful and illegal distribution of non-material products, having kept an opportunity for creative and free using the Internet platform as a resource of social production of the innovations.

Gender Awareness and Women Managers in Tourism

2019 ◽  
pp. 218-238
Author(s):  
Inês Carvalho ◽  
Carlos Costa ◽  
Anália Torres
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women Managers ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
The State ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
The Status ◽  
Gender Awareness ◽  
State Organizations

The purpose of this chapter is to reveal women top-level managers' gender awareness in relation to two aspects: 1) perceptions of discrimination and 2) views of what could be done towards gender equality (by the state, organizations, and women themselves), so that more women can advance their careers. Women top-level managers in the Portuguese tourism sector were interviewed. The interview data suggests that discrimination might still be pervasive in the Portuguese tourism industry. However, many women do not perceive it as “real” discrimination and have contradictory discourses about it. Informants were also asked what could be done so that more women advance in their careers. They place the solution to the problem of gender equality mostly in women's hands. While some of the strategies proposed by women confront the gender order, others align with the status quo by ensuring that women “fit in” without challenging existing structures.

Seeing the State

2018 ◽  
pp. 124-165
Author(s):  
Jelle J.P. Wouters
Keyword(s):  
Political Conflict ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Postcolonial State ◽  
Dual Relation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines how protracted political conflict shapes the ways ordinary Naga men and women ‘see’ the postcolonial state. For most Nagas, long decades of conflict were marked by a dual relation to the state. On the one hand, they experienced the coercive, repressive powers of the state, while, after the enactment of Nagaland in 1963, the state manifested itself as a source of largesse and livelihood, as part of a politically driven policy of ‘seduction’ to tie Nagas to existing state structures and the political status quo. These historical experiences muddled distinctions between the state as a benevolent provider and protector, and that of a dispenser of bodily violence and misery, between the state as a lucrative resource and reservoir of public resentment. The way Naga villagers engage and ‘see’ the state, I argue, is mediated by this historical ambiguity.

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