Action, Judgment, and Imagination in Hannah Arendt’s Thought

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew H. Tyner
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
New World ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Moral Conviction ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Attitude Certainty ◽  
The World ◽  
First Offers

This article presents a conception of imagination that emerges from Hannah Arendt’s writings on action, judgment, and responsibility. Imagination, for Arendt, is central to the processes of action and judgment, as it enables political actors and spectators to imagine a new world that could look differently from the world that exists. Importantly, though, this imagined world needs to bear some resemblance to the world that actually exists to avoid losing touch with reality and factual truth. The loss of reality and factual truth risks judgments that are inattentive and actions that are destructive and tyrannical. Imagination must be bounded, for Arendt, to ensure that action and judgment remain tied to reality. The article first offers this novel interpretation of Arendtian imagination before discussing its relationship to contemporary research on political participation, moral conviction, and attitude certainty.

Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa

1994 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bratton ◽  
Nicolas van de Walle
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
Transition Dynamics ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The World ◽  
Consolidated Democracy

This article proposes revisions to the theory of political transitions by analyzing patterns of recent popular challenges to neopatrimonial rule in Africa. The approach is explicitly comparative, based on contrasts between Africa and the rest of the world and among regimes within Africa itself. Arguing against the prevalent view that transitions unfold unpredictably according to the contingent interplay of key political actors, the authors contend that the structure of the preexisting regime shapes the dynamics and sometimes even the outcomes of political transitions. They find that in contrast to transitions from corporatist regimes, transitions from neopatrimonial rule are likely to be driven by social protest, marked by struggles over patronage, and backed by emerging middle classes. Following Dahl, the authors compare African regimes on the basis of the degree of formal political participation and competition allowed. They find that regime variants—personal dictatorship, military oligarchy, plebiscitary one-party regime, and competitive one-party regime—are associated with distinctive transition dynamics. Whereas transitions from military oligarchies are typically managed from the top down and are relatively orderly, transitions from plebiscitary systems often occur discordantly through confrontational national conferences. A consolidated democracy is least likely to result from the abrupt collapse of a personal dictatorship and is most likely, though never guaranteed, from a graduated transition from a competitive one-party regime. In general, getting to democracy is problematic from all regimes that lack institutional traditions of political competition.

Henry Kissinger's book World order: Reflections on the beginnings of nations and the course of history

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Abdul Hamid Al - Eid Al - Mousawi
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Global System ◽  
The World ◽  
Western European ◽  
Book World

The central idea of Henry Kissinger's latest book, The Global System, is that the world desperately needs a new world order, otherwise geopolitical chaos threatens the world, and perhaps chaos will prevail and settle in the world. According to Kissinger, the world order was not really there at all, but what was closest to the system was the Treaty of Westphalia, which included about twenty Western European states for almost four centuries.

A new species of Platymystax (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Cryptinae: Hemigasterini) from Mexico

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-286
Author(s):  
D.R. Kasparyan ◽  
M. López-Ortega
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
New World ◽  
Identification Key ◽  
Preliminary Identification ◽  
Mexican State ◽  
The World ◽  
A New Species ◽  
World Fauna

A new species of the tribe Hemigasterini, Platymystax xalapa sp. nov., is described from the Mexican State of Veracruz. It is the first species of the genus described from the New World. A preliminary identification key to all known seven species of Platymystax of the world fauna is provided.

Information Component of Disintegration Processes in Spain and Great Britain: the Comparative Aspects

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-154
Author(s):  
Vasyl Karpo ◽  
Nataliia Nechaieva-Yuriichuk
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Practical Interest ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Ancient Times

From ancient times till nowadays information plays a key role in the political processes. The beginning of XXI century demonstrated the transformation of global security from military to information, social etc. aspects. The widening of pandemic demonstrated the weaknesses of contemporary authoritarian states and the power of human-oriented states. During the World War I the theoretical and practical interest toward political manipulation and political propaganda grew definitely. After 1918 the situation developed very fast and political propaganda became the part of political influence. XX century entered into the political history as the millennium of propaganda. The collapse of the USSR and socialist system brought power to new political actors. The global architecture of the world has changed. Former Soviet republic got independence and tried to separate from Russia. And Ukraine was between them. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine was the start point for a number of processes in world politics. But the most important was the fact that the role and the place of information as the challenge to world security was reevaluated. The further annexation of Crimea, the attempt to legitimize it by the comparing with the referendums in Scotland and Catalonia demonstrated the willingness of Russian Federation to keep its domination in the world. The main difference between the referendums in Scotland and in Catalonia was the way of Russian interference. In 2014 (Scotland) tried to delegitimised the results of Scottish referendum because they were unacceptable for it. But in 2017 we witness the huge interference of Russian powers in Spain internal affairs, first of all in spreading the independence moods in Catalonia. The main conclusion is that the world has to learn some lessons from Scottish and Catalonia cases and to be ready to new challenges in world politics in a format of information threats.

MODERN STAGE IN THE FORMATIONOF POLYCENTRIC WORLD

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
А.N. MIKHAILENKO
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
New World Order ◽  
International Leadership ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future

The world is in a state of profound changes. One of the most likely forms of the future world pattern is polycentrism. At the stage of the formation of a new world order, it is very important to identify its key properties, identify the challenges associated with them and offer the public possible answers to them. It is proposed to consider conflictness, uncertainty and other features as properties of polycentrism. These properties entail certain challenges, the answers to them could be flexibility of diplomacy, development of international leadership and others.

scholarly journals Latin America in Global History: An Historiographic Overview

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Olstein
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
World History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Global History ◽  
The World ◽  
Last Ice Age ◽  
Great Divergence

Abstract World history can be arranged into three major regional divergences: the 'Greatest Divergence' starting at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago) and isolating the Old and the New Worlds from one another till 1500; the 'Great Divergence' bifurcating the paths of Europe and Afro-Asia since 1500; and the 'American Divergence' which divided the fortunes of New World societies from 1500 onwards. Accordingly, all world regions have confronted two divergences: one disassociating the fates of the Old and New Worlds, and the other within either the Old or the New World. Latin America is in the uneasy position that in both divergences it ended up on the 'losing side.' As a result, a contentious historiography of Latin America evolved from the very moment that it was incorporated into the wider world. Three basic attitudes toward the place of Latin America in global history have since emerged and developed: admiration for the major impact that the emergence on Latin America on the world scene imprinted on global history; hostility and disdain over Latin America since it entered the world scene; direct rejection of and head on confrontation in reaction the former. This paper examines each of these three attitudes in five periods: the 'long sixteenth century' (1492-1650); the 'age of crisis' (1650-1780); 'the long nineteenth century' (1780-1914); 'the short twentieth century' (1914-1991); and 'contemporary globalization' (1991 onwards).

Four Conceptions of Authority in International Relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jorg Kustermans ◽  
Rikkert Horemans
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
International Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
Authority Relations ◽  
The Stability

Abstract There is increasing agreement that states and other political actors on the world stage sometimes achieve international authority. However, there is less agreement about the nature and functioning of international authority relations. What determines whether an actor will be recognized as an authoritative actor? And what are the effects thereof? In this essay, we identify four distinct conceptions of authority in the study of international relations: authority as contract, authority as domination, authority as impression, and authority as consecration. Consideration of the typology leads to two important insights. First, the phenomenon of authority has an essentially experiential dimension. Subordinate actors’ emotional experience of authority determines their response to authority and thus also has a fundamental impact on the stability of authority. Second, the emergence of forms of international authority does not entail, at least not necessarily, the weakening of the sovereignty of states, but can equally be argued to strengthen it.

Carnival Poetics of B. Vasilyev’s Story «Tomorrow Was the War»

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
Valentina Kovaleva ◽  
Oleg Pokhalenkov
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
State Machine ◽  
Hierarchical System ◽  
New World Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Usual Order ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Revolution

The article deals with such categories of carnivalization as a free familiar contact, eccentricity, profanation, carnival ambivalence, crowning, and debunking the carnival king. Taking these categories to the analysis of B. Vasilyev’s story «Tomorrow Was the War» into consideration allows not only to reveal the features of the carnival poetics of the work, but also to understand more deeply the atmos-phere of total Stalinist terror reigned in the country on the eve of the war. Turning to the theory of carnivalization helps to draw a conclusion about how heavy was the atmosphere of suspicion, informers, and unjustified repression created by the NKVD with the support ofthe state machine. B. Vasi-lyev makes the reader wonder whether the new world order that is being estab-lished can be considered better than the old one that has been swept away by the revolution. Thus, the main goal of the carnival is realized in the story–to turn inside out the usual ideas about the world as a reasonable hierarchical system, to turn the usual order of things upside down, to ridicule everything familiar and frozen, so that through denial, ridicule (symbolic death) to promote the re-vival and renewal of the world.

Winter War, Anti-Communism and the volunteers from abroad, 1939-1940

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
Kristo Karvinen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Country ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Winter War ◽  
The Uk

The 1939 invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union attracted more than just journalists to the frigid north. Thousands of volunteers around the world rallied under the Finnish flag, willing to risk their lives for a foreign country. Over ten thousand arrived before the end of the war, with more on their way, coming from Hungary and Estonia, Canada and the USA, Sweden and the UK. Were they all ardent anticommunists or did they have other motives? This article seeks to answer that question, utilising Finnish and British archives as well as contemporary research into war volunteering. The origins and motives of the volunteers are examined, revealing that their motives ran a wide gamut, including such reasons as anti-communism, linguistic fraternity and spirit of adventure, to name a few.

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