scholarly journals How does crisis affect the conflict between technocracy and populism? Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110499
Author(s):  
Anders Esmark

The article focuses on the relationship between technocracy and populism during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis. On one hand, this relationship has been defined by populist denial, displacement of crisis, and rejection of the technocratic consensus on the need for urgent and decisive action in the face of the global pandemic. On the other hand, COVID-19 has also led to convergence between the two sides and populist approximation to technocracy more akin to ‘technopopulist’ compromises and politics. The article shows that this pattern of antagonism and approximation has been shaped by three constitutive features of the state of exception and emergency during the COVID-19 crisis: (1) discursive securitization of the threat, (2) the use of extraordinary tools and measures under the licence of precautionary principle, and (3) institutional concentration of power. While COVID-19 is an extreme case in all three respects, the lessons learned from the pandemic advance our general understanding of technocracy and populism as constitutive features of contemporary politics.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 546-555
Author(s):  
Kananut Charoenthammachoke ◽  
Natt Leelawat ◽  
Jing Tang ◽  
Akira Kodaka ◽  
◽  
...  

Business Continuity Management (BCM) is commonly known as one of the most effective programs to use in the face of crisis, incident, and disaster, specifically for organizations to continue or resume their operations. Over time, the concept has gained popularity and has developed into one of the strategies in a resilience plan. The purpose of this study is to explore the trend of BCM, the subject, and the relationship between BCM and associated study fields through a preliminary systematic literature review. This research used the articles from ScienceDirect database from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2018. This study analyzed the collected articles using their publication years, journal titles, countries, and relevant study fields. The result found that several papers have been published since 1999, which focus predominantly on the BCM standard. The rate of publication on BCM had escalated in 2015. There were 82 papers about BCM. The issues were categorized into ten main subjects. Among them, the most frequently mentioned are Information Technology (IT) security, followed by implementing BCM into diverse study disciplines, implementing new toolkits into BCM associated studies, BCM improvement, resilience, lessons learned, supply chain, and BCM advantages. The gap of the research lays a foundation for future studies in similar fields.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Addison ◽  
Courtney M. Campbell ◽  
Avirup Guha ◽  
Arjun K. Ghosh ◽  
Susan F. Dent ◽  
...  

Abstract Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has emerged as a global pandemic and public health crisis. Increasing waves of intermittent infectious outbreaks have dramatically influenced care among broad populations. Over the past 2 decades, there has been a rapid increase in cancer survival, with >400 000 new survivors each year. The increasingly common presence of cardiovascular disease in patients during or after cancer treatment led to the rapid growth of the field of cardio‐oncology with a mandate of identifying, treating, and preventing the various forms of cardiovascular disease seen among this population. This review evaluates the implications of the pandemic on the practice and study of cardio‐oncology. The evolving understanding of the relationship between comorbid disease and clinical outcomes among this population is assessed. With the impetus of the pandemic, cardio‐oncology can be deliberate in embracing changes to cardiac screening, monitoring, and intervention during oncology care. Bridging 2 specialties, consideration of the lessons learned in cancer and cardiovascular may pivotally inform ongoing therapeutic efforts. Further, the development of multicenter registries focused on understanding and optimizing outcomes among these patients should be considered. Together, these insights may critically inform strategies for the care of cardio‐oncology patients in future phases of the COVID‐19 pandemic and beyond.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2 Jul-Dec) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
A. Vidak ◽  
V. Dananić ◽  
V. Mešić

In this study we investigated whether combining external visualizations with extreme case reasoning may facilitate developing of conceptual understanding about wave optics. For purposes of answering our research question we conducted a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment which included 179 students from a first year introductory physics course at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Students who were guided through extreme case reasoning in their wave optics seminars significantly outperformed their peers who received conventional teaching treatment. Findings from our study suggest that combining external visualizations with extreme case reasoning facilitates development of visually rich internal representations which are a good basis for performing mental simulations about wave optics phenomena. In addition, it has been also found that many students use the “closer to the source implicates greater effect” p-prim when reasoning about certain relationships, such as the relationship between fringes’ dimension and slits-screen separation.


Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1108-1125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Farías ◽  
Patricio Flores

The 2010 earthquake-tsunami in Chile did not just destroy cities and towns. It also revealed how the neoliberal decentralisation of the Chilean state initiated during the Pinochet dictatorship had radically diminished and fragmented territorial planning capacities, representing a major obstacle to the planning and management of the reconstruction process. In the face of this situation, exceptional reconstruction agencies were created, which engaged in the elaboration of master plans, suspending in practice – at least temporarily – existing planning authorities and instruments. These new institutional arrangements were also subject to a number of critiques, sparking moral controversies among different public actors about the contribution of these exceptional governmental agencies to the common good. Drawing on the Chilean example, this article proposes expanding the concept of the state of exception to include cases in which what is reconfigured is not the relationship between the State and the population, but the relationship between the state and its territory, so that exceptional powers can be applied upon a ‘bare land’ rather than a ‘bare life’. To the extent that this different state of exception does not reduce citizens to bodies to be protected and administered, it requires a moral rather than a technical justification.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Werth ◽  
Katherine Williams ◽  
Tyler Kroon

Students are experiencing enormous economic precarity as a result of COVID-19. Reports indicate that those hardest hit by job loss due to the coronavirus are of lower income (Beer, 2020). While economic recovery is underway for more affluent workers, the same cannot be said for those toward the bottom of the wage scale, particularly underserved populations (Long, 2020). The University of Pikeville (UPIKE) in Central Appalachia recognizes the impact that emerging and existing financial inequities have on our institution’s most vulnerable populations. Even pre-pandemic, students had indicated the costs of purchasing textbooks was stressful and discouraging. As a result, the institution decided in April 2020 to convert all classes to free materials by the start of the Fall 2020 semester. Written by those who supported faculty in this transition, the goal of this article is threefold: To describe our research methods in seeking out appropriate free material for instructors and how we guided faculty in developing their own knowledge in search strategies, To detail the process we established for faculty to apply for funding when appropriate materials could not be found, and To share the lessons we learned along with emerging success stories. We hope that this guidance will encourage other institutions to implement similar initiatives. Based on anecdotal experiences as well as our own ongoing research, we believe similar efforts are essential in addressing systemic inequities and creating cross-campus collaboration, particularly in the face of unprecedented challenges that were not created by, but have been exacerbated because of the global pandemic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freda-Marie Hartung ◽  
Britta Renner

Humans are social animals; consequently, a lack of social ties affects individuals’ health negatively. However, the desire to belong differs between individuals, raising the question of whether individual differences in the need to belong moderate the impact of perceived social isolation on health. In the present study, 77 first-year university students rated their loneliness and health every 6 weeks for 18 weeks. Individual differences in the need to belong were found to moderate the relationship between loneliness and current health state. Specifically, lonely students with a high need to belong reported more days of illness than those with a low need to belong. In contrast, the strength of the need to belong had no effect on students who did not feel lonely. Thus, people who have a strong need to belong appear to suffer from loneliness and become ill more often, whereas people with a weak need to belong appear to stand loneliness better and are comparatively healthy. The study implies that social isolation does not impact all individuals identically; instead, the fit between the social situation and an individual’s need appears to be crucial for an individual’s functioning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Louay Qais Abdullah ◽  
Duraid Faris Khayoun

The study focused basically on measuring the relationship between the material cost of the students benefits program and the benefits which are earned by it, which was distributed on college students in the initial stages (matinee) and to show the extent of the benefits accruing from the grant program compared to the material burdens which matched and the extent of success or failure of the experience and its effect from o scientific and side on the Iraqi student through these tough economic circumstances experienced by the country in general, and also trying to find ways of proposed increase or expansion of distribution in the future in the event of proven economic feasibility from the program. An data has been taking from the data fro the Department of Financial Affairs and the Department of Studies and Planning at the University of Diyala with taking an data representing an actual and minimized pattern and questionnaires to a sample of students from the Department of Life Sciences in the Faculty of Education of the University of Diyala on the level of success and failure of students in the first year of the grant and the year before for the purpose of distribution comparison. The importance of the study to measure the extent of interest earned in comparision whit the material which is expenseon the program of grant (grant of students) to assist the competent authorities to continue or not in the program of student grants for the coming years.


Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-332
Author(s):  
Kate Zebiri

This article aims to explore the Shaykh-mur?d (disciple) or teacher-pupil relationship as portrayed in Western Sufi life writing in recent decades, observing elements of continuity and discontinuity with classical Sufism. Additionally, it traces the influence on the texts of certain developments in religiosity in contemporary Western societies, especially New Age understandings of religious authority. Studying these works will provide an insight into the diversity of expressions of contemporary Sufism, while shedding light on a phenomenon which seems to fly in the face of contemporary social and religious trends which deemphasize external authority and promote the authority of the self or individual autonomy.


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