Public Hearings and Public Spheres in India: The Case of the Right to Information (RTI) Movement

2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradip Ninan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Means ◽  
Public Hearings ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right

This article explores issues related to the Right to Information movement in India specifically in relation to the public sphere, a concept that is habitually invoked to describe spaces for deliberation and communication. It explores the role played by the jan sunwai (public hearings) in the creation of a counter public sphere based on the local idiom, local means of communication and performative traditions that enabled a balance between speaking, listening and actioning. The article focuses on the Right to Information movement and the jan sunwai as an important indigenous means and pedagogical device used by this movement to mobilise, radicalise and give voice to marginalised people who have traditionally been expected to remain silent, even in the face of the most atrocious atrocities committed by the forward castes and wealthy.

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

Archiving the British Raj

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Raj ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Central Archive

The archives are generally sites where historians conduct research into our past. Seldom are they objects of research. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya traces the path that led to the creation of a central archive in India, from the setting up of the Imperial Record Department, the precursor of the National Archives of India, and the Indian Historical Records Commission, to the framing of archival policies and the change in those policies over the years. In the last two decades of colonial rule in India, there were anticipations of freedom in many areas of the public sphere. These were felt in the domain of archiving as well, chiefly in the form of reversal of earlier policies. From this perspective, Bhattacharya explores the relation between knowledge and power and discusses how the World Wars and the decline of Britain, among other factors, effected a transition from a Eurocentric and disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethnocentric one.

Pictorial Debates: The Tatar Satirical Journal Yalt-Yolt and Muslim Modernity Discourses, 1906-1917

Experiment ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-181
Author(s):  
Azade-Ayse Rorlich
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Russian Empire

Abstract The Great Reform era in Russia, as well as the modernist movements in the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim lands represent the background against which the Muslims of the Russian Empire engaged in the scrutiny of the reasons behind the backwardness of their societies and began advocating the compatibility of Islam with modernity. After 1906, the Muslim press became the most important instrument in the creation of the public sphere where issues of tradition and modernity were debated. This essay focuses on the Tatar satirical journal Yalt-Yolt to explore its contribution to the critique of the old Muslim mentalité, as well as its role as an instrument of modernity.

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 Kepemimpinan Perempuan di Ruang Publik dalam Tafsir Al-Kasysyâf

Al-Ulum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 459-480
Author(s):  
Sulaiman Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right

This paper explores al-Zamakhshari's thoughts on women's leadership in the public sphere in tafsir al-Kasysyaf's . Islam does not require the wife to submit to her husband as he is obliged to submit to God. On the contrary, with the existence of rights that must be fulfilled by the husband towards the wife, then as reciprocity of Islam gives the right for the husband to be obeyed as long as it does not conflict with the teachings of religion. However, in terms of leadership in the public sphere, az-Zamakhsyarîy is more likely to place the position of women under men. This is evident in his expression when interpreting the word فضل الله بعضهم علي بعض that leadership is given by Allah to men because of its advantages in several respects, even az-Zamakhsyarîy considers men to have many advantages over women

scholarly journals Heiner Goebbels's Stifters Dinge and the Arendtian Public Sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Luke Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Working Processes

Heiner Goebbels’s works are examples of “postdramatic” theatre works that engage with the political by seeking to challenge socially ingrained habits of perception rather than by presenting traditional, literary-based theatre of political didacticism or agitation. Goebbels claims to work toward a “non-hierarchical” theatre in the contexts of his arrangement of the various theatrical elements, in fostering collaborative working processes between the artists involved, and in the creation of audience-artist relationships. In offering a reading of Goebbels’s “no-man show” Stifters Dinge, this paper seeks to situate Goebbels’s practice within a theoretical tradition that also encompasses Hannah Arendt’s deployment of the theatre as a metaphor for the public sphere. Within this analysis, I suggest, theatre can be seen to offer the possibility of a participatory democracy through its attention to disappearance and absence.

Père Trump

October ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Hal Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Higher Power ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the face of Trumpism and its peculiar mix of the buffoonish and the lethal, Foster suggests that we “pump up” past theoretical concepts by raising them to a higher degree. Social media, for example, could thereby be considered the “fifth estate,” a force that outdoes the “fourth estate” of journalistic media and thereby evacuates the last residues of the public sphere that, over fifty years ago, Jürgen Habermas associated with the advent of print culture. Peter Sloterdijk's notion of cynical reason, too, must be raised to a higher power in order to comprehend the Trumpist mentality; perhaps in this post-truth era, we should speak instead of “noncynical unreason”? And while the concept of the “primal father” is so outrageous that it cannot be inflated, Foster argues, it is one that we must grapple with in the face of a figure who, like Freud's figure, embodies the law and simultaneously performs its transgression.

scholarly journals Archives, libraries and museums in the Nordic model of the public sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkon Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Archival Science ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of ALM organizations within a Nordic model of the public sphere. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper discussing the role of archives, libraries and museums in light of a societal model of the Nordic public sphere. Throughout the discussions, the author draw on empirical and theoretical research from sociology, political science, media studies, cultural policy studies, archival science, museology, and library and information science to help advance our understanding of these organizations in a wider societal context. Findings The paper shows that ALM organizations play an important role for the infrastructure of a civil public sphere. Seen as a cluster, these organizations are providers of information that can be employed in deliberative activities in mediated public spheres, as well as training arenas for citizens to use prior to entering such spheres. Furthermore, ALM organizations are themselves public spheres, as they can serve specific communities and help create and maintain identities, and solidarities, all of which are important parts of a civil public sphere. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate whether these roles are an important part of ALM organizations contribution to public spheres in other regions of the world. Originality/value Through introducing a theoretical model developed within sociology and connecting it to ongoing research in archival science, museology, and library and information science, the author connects the societal role of archives, libraries, and museums to broader discussions within the social sciences.

Battles of Ideas Between the Legal and the Legitimate

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Paula Castro ◽  
Sonia Brondi ◽  
Alberta Contarello
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Many

This chapter discusses how social psychology can offer theoretical contributions for a better understanding of the relations between the institutional and public spheres and how this may impact change in ecological matters. First, it introduces the difference between natural and agreed—or chosen—limits to human action and draws on Sophocles’s Antigone to illustrate this and discuss how legitimacy has roots in the many heterogeneous values of the public sphere/consensual universe, while legality arises from the institutional/reified sphere. Recalling some empirical research in the area of social studies of sustainability, it then shows how a social representations perspective can help us understand the dynamic and interdependent relations between the institutional or reified sphere and the consensual or common sense universe—and their implications for social change and continuity.

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