scholarly journals Arsehole aristocracy (or: Montesquieu on honour, revisited)

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Contemporary Philosopher

The 18th-century French political theorist the Baron de Montesquieu described honour as the ‘principle’ – or animating force – of a well-functioning monarchy, which he thought the appropriate regime type for an economically unequal society extended over a broad territory. Existing literature often presents this honour in terms of lofty ambition, the desire for preference and distinction, a spring for political agency or a spur to the most admirable kind of conduct in public life and the performance of great deeds. Perhaps so. But it also seems to involve quite a bit of what the contemporary philosopher Aaron James calls ‘being an asshole’, and the article will explore what happens to Montesquieu’s political theory of monarchy – which is foundational for an understanding of modern politics – when we reverse the usual perspective and consider it through the lens of the arsehole aristocracy.

The Marxist Critique of International Political Theory

2018 ◽  
pp. 651-663
Author(s):  
Andrew Davenport
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
International Politics ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The Status ◽  
Leading Schools ◽  
Normative Issues

Marxism’s critique of International Political Theory (IPT) is not of specific themes but of how the latter understands international politics generally. Where IPT typically focuses on ethical and normative issues and problems of justice, Marxism has always given priority to capitalism and class, which it regards as fundamental to modern politics and as inadequately recognized within IPT. Marxism therefore rejects the view of the international as a shared “societal” space open to negotiation and compromise, and instead emphasizes irreconcilable conflict and exploitation. Through its leading schools of Imperialism, World Systems Theory, and Neo-Gramscian theory, Marxism has provided accounts of international politics that strongly contrast with the concerns of IPT. However, a potentially more far-reaching line of critique, drawing upon Marx’s analysis of liberal forms, remains undeveloped because Marxism has not yet clarified the status of the international within its theoretical space.

Toward a Sociology of Colonial Subjectivity: Political Agency in Haiti and Liberia

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricarda Hammer ◽  
Alexandre I. R. White
Keyword(s):  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Formation Theory ◽  
Racial Formations ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Black Agency

The authors seek to connect global historical sociology with racial formation theory to examine how antislavery movements fostered novel forms of self-government and justifications for state formation. The cases of Haiti and Liberia demonstrate how enslaved and formerly enslaved actors rethought modern politics at the time, producing novel political subjects in the process. Prior to the existence of these nations, self-determination by black subjects in colonial spaces was impossible, and each sought to carve out that possibility in the face of a transatlantic structure of slavery. This work demonstrates how Haitian and Liberian American founders responded to colonial structures, though in Liberia reproducing them albeit for their own ends. The authors demonstrate the importance of colonial subjectivities to the discernment of racial structures and counter-racist action. They highlight how anticolonial actors challenged global antiblack oppression and how they legitimated their self-governance and freedom on the world stage. Theorizing from colonized subjectivities allows sociology to begin to understand the politics around global racial formations and starts to incorporate histories of black agency into the sociological canon.

Democratising Moves: Power, Agency and the Body

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-17
Author(s):  
Stacey Prickett
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
American Values ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Masses

Abstract Recently, the word ’democracy’ has been featured prominently in the press, with calls to restore it, save it from ominous threats and expose challenges to its principles, all predicated on an assumed understanding of the concept. Many of the roots of today’s democracies reach back to the 18th century revolutions in the pre-U.S. American colonies and France, which continue to reinforce Euro-American values and ideologies of nation. The transfer of power remains a defining principle, shifting control from elites to the masses. How do the principles that inspired democratic revolutions relate to the ballot-box versions of democracy today? This article considers contemporary complexities of democracy as a concept, offering examples of how it is embodied through iconography, gestures of defiance and civil disobedience. Democratic values are explored in more formal choreography and in creative processes that establish associations with political agency.

From New Anarchism to Post-anarchism

Kropotkin ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines contemporary anarchist critiques of Kropotkin, especially post-anarchist analysis. It argues that science has become a byword to describe Kropotkin's political theory, providing an exemplar for classical anarchism. This theory is described as teleological, based on a particular concept of human nature and linked to a form of revolutionary utopianism that promises the realisation of anarchy. Post-anarchists dissolve the distance between Kropotkin and Bakunin that advocates of his evolutionary theory invented in the 1960s in order to rescue anarchism from its reputation for violence. This repackaging of historical traditions underpins judgments about the irrelevance of anarchism to contemporary politics and political theory. In response, critics of post-anarchism have sought to defend nineteenth-century revolutionary traditions. The result of this argument is that Kropotkin emerges as a political theorist of class struggle. This defence raises significant questions about the coherence of Kropotkin's position on the war in 1914.

Bryce, James (1838–1922)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Munro
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Politics And Law

James Bryce, British statesman and writer, combined a distinguished public life with scholarship in history, politics and law. As a jurist his interest lay in historical jurisprudence, but he is best remembered for his comparative politics. He contributed significantly to democratic political theory and to a liberal-historicist approach in philosophy of law.

6. Religion

2016 ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Ritchie Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Contemporary Philosopher ◽  
Good And Evil

Goethe was brought up in Frankfurt, a Protestant city where the Lutheran Church held sway, but was also introduced to key Enlightenment texts through his father’s extensive library. ‘Religion’ explains that an early Pietist phase strengthened the value that Goethe placed on tolerance in religious matters. Goethe’s standpoint was what the 18th century called ‘natural religion’. Goethe’s allegiance to the Enlightenment is seen in his work, including the poem ‘Prometheus’ (1774) and the neoclassical drama Iphigenie in Tauris (1786–7). Goethe seems to anticipate Nietzsche in viewing human life as ‘beyond good and evil’. What mattered to Goethe was individuality, which brings him close to the greatest contemporary philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

Representation, Bicameralism, Political Equality, and Sortition: Reconstituting the Second Chamber as a Randomly Selected Assembly

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Abizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Many ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Legislative Review ◽  
Political Turn

The two traditional justifications for bicameralism are that a second legislative chamber serves a legislative-review function (enhancing the quality of legislation) and a balancing function (checking concentrated power and protecting minorities). I furnish here a third justification for bicameralism, with one elected chamber and the second selected by lot, as an institutional compromise between contradictory imperatives facing representative democracy: elections are a mechanism of people’s political agency and of accountability, but run counter to political equality and impartiality, and are insufficient for satisfactory responsiveness; sortition is a mechanism for equality and impartiality, and of enhancing responsiveness, but not of people’s political agency or of holding representatives accountable. Whereas the two traditional justifications initially grew out of anti-egalitarian premises (about the need for elite wisdom and to protect the elite few against the many), the justification advanced here is grounded in egalitarian premises about the need to protect state institutions from capture by the powerful few and to treat all subjects as political equals. Reflecting the “political” turn in political theory, I embed this general argument within the institutional context of Canadian parliamentary federalism, arguing that Canada’s Senate ought to be reconstituted as a randomly selected citizen assembly.

Pragmatic Belief and Political Agency

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-666
Author(s):  
Jakob Huber
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Scant Attention

According to a recent methodological critique, much of contemporary political theory has lost touch with the realities of political life. The aim of this article is to problematise the underlying antagonism between distant ideals and concrete contexts of agency. Drawing on Kant’s notion of pragmatic Belief – the idea that in certain situations we can put full confidence in something we lack sufficient evidence for – I point to the distinctly practical function of political ideals that these disputes pay scant attention to. Particularly in political contexts, action is itself often framed by ‘ideal constructions’ that not only motivate and enable us to pursue uncertain goals but also ultimately feed back onto what is practically possible. The upshot is that especially if we are interested in a kind of theorising that is less detached from political practice, we should be wary of disregarding distant ideals as unduly utopian from the outset.

Communitarianism

Politics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Lacey ◽  
Elizabeth Frazer
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Blind Alley ◽  
Political Theorist

This article presents ‘Communitarianism’ in political theory as a ‘Blind Alley’. This is on the grounds that it is difficult to find a political theorist who is willing to be called a communitarian, because the literature lacks any well delineated concept of community, and because a number of awkward theoretical questions, notably about power, arise which are not clearly addressed within the literature. Furthermore, communitarianism has been a blind alley for feminists. Although feminism and so-called communitarianism share an opposition to some other varieties of social and political theory, the apparent affinities between feminism and communitarianism mask significant differences.

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