Is Indian sedition law colonial? J. F. Stephen and the jurisprudence on free speech

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-504
Author(s):  
Sunny Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Constitutive Relation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Colonial Governance ◽  
Alternative Understanding

This article critically evaluates the characterisation of sedition law as colonial by analysing the arguments made by J. F. Stephen in opposing such a claim. While Stephen obfuscated the close links between the sedition law and the requirements of colonial governance, he made a persuasive case for how the sedition law was completely consistent with British ideas of liberty, utility, and the rule of law. Stephen’s arguments about legitimate limits to political liberties, particularly his critique of J. S. Mill in this regard, offer us an opportunity to question the presumed antithesis between colonial and metropolitan jurisprudence and trace their shared origins in British political thought. To that end, with Stephen as an interlocutor, this article critically analyses themes such as the defence of empire, colonialism, and the idea of improvement within a wider set of writings by British political philosophers, to arrive at an alternative understanding of British political liberalism. My article concludes that rather than ‘colonial difference’, the constitutive relation between sedition law and liberal jurisprudence better explains the prevalence of similar authoritarian laws within democratic regimes across the globe.

Challenging the Rule of Political Liberalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-296
Author(s):  
Tor-Inge Harbo
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Pluralism ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
Good Intention ◽  
Alternative Understanding ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The origin of the ongoing conflict between the EU and Poland may, according to the author, partly be subscribed to the EU-institutions conceptualization of the rule of law. This conceptualization, which in the article is referred to as “the rule of political liberalism”, establishes a particular set of legal institutional and substantial frames and limits for national democratic politics. Granted that the rule of law is an inherently contested concept, the author deconstructs the rule of political liberalism, reveals its weaknesses and ideological bias and proposes an alternative understanding of the rule of law. “The rule of pragmatism” is based on a pragmatic conceptualization of the law, and proscribes a regard for social context and consequences rather than abstract constructions and (good) intention. If applied by the EU institutions, the rule of pragmatism will secure greater legal and political pluralism in Europe and thus contributes to the mending of EU’s legitimacy deficit.

The Global State of Democracy 2021: Building resilience in a pandemic era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Global State ◽  
New Normal ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Building Resilience ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The World ◽  
Autocratic Regimes

The world is becoming more authoritarian as autocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a "new normal" of Covid-19 restrictions. Over a quarter of the world's population now live under democratically backsliding governments, including some of the world's largest democracies, such as Brazil, India and three EU members - Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. Together with those living in non-democratic regimes, they make up more than two-thirds of the world's population.

Dreaming of a Meritocracy, Grappling with Reality

2019 ◽  
pp. 224-267
Author(s):  
Aaron Stalnaker
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Extreme Difference ◽  
Chinese Political Thought

This chapter examines early Confucian political theory, and argues that they were well aware of both the potentials and pitfalls of politics. This is most visible in their prescriptions about the cultivation, discipline, and employment of elites for the greater benefit of society. Mèngzǐ and Xúnzǐ dreamed of a perfect meritocracy where the wise are recognized, given power, and rule benevolently, overseen and selected by a sage king. This vision led to the persistent utopianism that Metzger and Angle criticize in later Chinese political thought. But Mèngzǐ and Xúnzǐ were also vividly aware of the extreme difference between actual conditions and their meritocratic dream, and developed a number of thoughtful responses to the failures of existing politics. These ideas form a philosophy of elite cultivation and discipline that analyzes the “rule by people” necessary to complement and implement the “rule of law.”

Citizenship, otherness and cosmopolitism in Kant

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-446
Author(s):  
Gérard Raulet
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Perpetual Peace ◽  
To Come ◽  
Ancien Régime

In the present social and political context, there is an urgent need to reexamine attentively the theories that have founded the modern conception of citizenship and, in particular, to scrutinize the relation they have established between otherness and modern national identity. I intend to do this by resorting to Kant's writings on the philosophy of history, and particularly his political Project for a Perpetual Peace, in which he attempts to come to grips with the consequences of the breakdown of the ancien régime and of the pre-modern conception of the nation in order to outline the modern principles governing the three levels of right: of the Rechtsstaat (a state based on the rule of law); of the Völkerrecht (the people's right); and of the so-called Weltbürgerrecht (the “cosmopolitical right”). The decisive and perhaps disturbing idea that has to be demonstrated is that, in Kant's modern political thought, there is no contradiction between nationalism and cosmopolitism. Any interpretation of his thought that neglects this point would lead to a misunderstanding of Kant's philosophical revolution and fall back into the political as well as the metaphysical ancien régime. We have to show: (1) that Kant's critique of Reason aims to establish a legislation in the sphere of knowledge itself and that it must therefore accomplish in this sphere a “revolution” that distinguishes - in opposition to metaphysical universalism - different territories with their own constitution and legislation; (2) that the relation between this theoretical “revolution” and the political one is not only a metaphor, and that Kant's rejection of the political ancien régime cannot be correctly understood if it is not related to the theoretical model of the legitimacy of the different territories of Reason.

30. Oakeshott

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Background Theory ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Civil Association ◽  
British Idealism ◽  
Politics And Law

This chapter examines Michael Oakeshott's political thought, beginning with a discussion of his scepticism and its relation to the background theory of British idealism that informs all aspects of his philosophy. It then considers Oakeshott's belief that philosophy is the uncovering and questioning of the postulates upon which all our forms of understanding rest. Oakeshott has been characterized as a conservative, a liberal, and an ideologist, but this chapter argues that he was neither conservative nor liberal in any party-political sense. It goes on to analyse Oakeshott's views on the rationalist in politics, civil association and the rule of law, and politics and law as well as his characterization of the modern European state. The chapter concludes by assessing the importance Oakeshott attached to myth and legend in the self-consciousness of a society.

The Political Thought of Mirzā Aqā Khān Kermāni, The Father of Persian National Liberalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-161
Author(s):  
Pejman Abdolmohammadi
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Time ◽  
Constitutional Revolution

The second half of the nineteenth century is one of the most important periods for the evolution of political thought in Persia. Notable intellectuals started to develop a critical perception of the social, economic and political issues, giving life to a new current of thought which became known as the constitutionalist movement of Iran. Mirzā Aqā Khān Kermāni (1853-1896) is one of the most important thinkers of this time who, in numerous books and articles, puts forward constitutionalist and nationalist ideas for the first time in Iranian contemporary history. This article will examine his political thought, highlighting how Kermāni, after being in contact with the liberal and constitutional ideas of western thinkers and also after a new revision of his own Persian history and philosophy, was able to work out a new way of thinking which contributed to creating the ideological basis for a modern concept of Nationalism in Iran and for the first attempt at secularization of Iranian society. This article shows how the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906 (mashrūṭeh) was in fact partially the fruit of ideas of this first generation of secular thinkers such as Kermāni, who were able to spread a new civil concept of the state which separated religion from politics, by introducing the rule of law and limiting the absolute power of the monarch.

PLATO AND THE RULE OF LAW

Méthexis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCISCO L. LISI
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Substantial Change ◽  
Usual Interpretation ◽  
Ordered State

According to the usual interpretation, Plato's last dialogue, the Laws, indicates a substantial change in his political thought, namely the defence of the Rule of Law as the best possible political order. Therefore, he has been considered the first representative of this central concept for the modern State. The present paper points to the radical differences between Plato'sconception and the contemporary understanding of the Rule of Law. It also explains his interpretation of the function of the law in a well-ordered State and to the opposition of his view to ourcontemporary doctrine of democracy.

scholarly journals LIBERALISM, CULTURAL PARTICULARISM, AND THE RULE OF LAW IN MODERN EAST ASIA: THE ANTI-CONFUCIAN ESSENTIALISMS OF CHEN DUXIU AND FUKUZAWA YUKICHI COMPARED

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-542
Author(s):  
KIRI PARAMORE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Exclusionary Practices ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
China And Japan ◽  
Chen Duxiu

How and why are universalist modes of political thought transformed into culturally essentialist and exclusionary practices of governance and law? This article considers this question by analyzing the interaction between Confucianism and liberalism in East Asia. It argues that liberalism, particularly as it was used in attacking Confucianism, was instrumental in embedding ideas of cultural particularism and cultural essentialism in the emergence of modern political thought and law in both China and Japan. Both Confucianism and liberalism are self-imagined as universalist traditions, theoretically applicable to all global societies. Yet in practice both have regularly been defined in culturally determined, culturally exclusivist terms: Confucianism as “Chinese,” liberalism as “British” or “Western.” The meeting of Confucian and liberal visions of universalism and globalism in nineteenth-century East Asia provides an intriguing case study for considering the interaction between universalism and cultural exclusivism. This article focuses on the role of nineteenth-century global liberalism in attacks upon the previous Confucian order in East Asia, demonstrating the complicity of liberalism in new, culturally essentialist and particularist constructions of governance and law in both China and Japan.

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