Democratic Aesthetics: Scenes of Political Violence and Anxiety in Nari Ward and Ocean Vuong

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Scully
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Consensus Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Equality ◽  
New Form ◽  
We The People

Abstract By attending to art and writing that interrogates US citizenship and state violence, this essay foregrounds the structural antagonism between democracy as an instituted form of rule, which depends on inegalitarian hierarchies, and democracy’s egalitarian drive. It argues that the realization of democracy as a form of governance (consensus democracy) occurs by substituting the rule of a part for the whole, which violently forces democracy’s constitutive figures to conform to and negotiate its organizing logics. Nari Ward’s We the People (2011) allegorizes this inherent tension in democracy as one between synecdoche and metonymy. The article then theorizes a new form of democratic politics through an engagement with Jacques Rancière before turning to Ocean Vuong’s “Notebook Fragments” (2016) and “Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds” (2016) as articulations of a democratic aesthetics constituted by figures—including metonymy, irony, and catachresis—that interrupt the substitutions of synecdoche. Vuong’s poetry foregrounds the violence enacted by state fantasies and insists on the democratic equality disavowed by consensus democracy. Together, Ward and Vuong locate the political force of aesthetics not in reassuring visions of inclusion but in operations that disturb and resist any form of hierarchy.

Regional-Cosmopolitan Constituent Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The People ◽  
We The People ◽  
The Eu

This chapter deals with the question of whether the public narrative of ‘We, the people of Europe’, which claims constituent power for a cross-border demos composed of EU citizens, can be justified in terms of a systematic model. To that end, it draws on the political theory of regional cosmopolitanism, which holds that even though the EU is not a state, it has its own political community. The literature on regional cosmopolitanism offers two possible strategies of defending the idea of an EU-wide constituent power: a first-principles approach and a reconstructive approach. The chapter argues that only the latter proves viable, and then goes on to examine the merits of the model that it gives rise to. While regional-cosmopolitan constituent power plausibly responds to the fact that the EU has created a new group of addressees and authors of the law, it neglects the continuing importance of the member state peoples and fails to explain how an EU-wide constituent power could be reconciled with the compound and dependent nature of the EU polity.

America's Constitutional Narrative

Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence H. Tribe
Keyword(s):  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
We The People

America has always been a wonderfully diverse place, a country where billions of stories spanning centuries and continents converge under the rubric of a Constitution that unites them in an ongoing narrative of national self-creation. Rather than rehearse familiar debates over what our Constitution means, this essay explores what the Constitution does. It treats the Constitution as a verb – a creative and contested practice that yields a trans-generational conversation about the meaning of our past, the imperatives of our present, and the values and aspirations that should point us toward our future. And it meditates on how this practice, drawing deeply on the capacious wellsprings of text and history, simultaneously reinforces the political order and provides a language for challenging its legitimacy, thereby constituting us as “We, the People,” joined in a single project framed centuries ago that nevertheless remains inevitably our own.

scholarly journals Beyond the Contours of Normally Acceptable Political Violence: Is Cameroon a Conflict/Transitional Society in the Offing?

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Avitus A Agbor ◽  
Esther E Njieassam
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Action ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Transitional Society ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

Legal scholars and other social scientists agree that political violence comprising assaults on civil and political liberties may occur in the context of contentious politics. Unfortunately, there have been instances in history where such politics is marked by intermittent attacks against people's rights and freedoms. Such attacks occur when politics has gone sour, and there are times when the violence exceeds the bounds of what is acceptable. From the documented atrocities of Nazi Germany, the horrendous crimes of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia, the outrageous crimes perpetrated during the genocide in Rwanda, the shameful and despicable inhumanities inflicted on the people of Darfur in the Sudan, and the violence in post-electoral Kenya, to the bloodshed in areas like Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, etc, violent conflict has punctuated world history. Added to this list of countries is Cameroon, which in the last quarter of 2016 degenerated into a hotspot of political violence in the English-speaking regions. The perpetration of political violence in Cameroon has raised serious questions that may be relevant not only to the resolution of the political problem that gave rise to the violence but also to laying the foundations of a post-conflict Cameroon that is united and honours the principles of truth, justice and reconciliation. This paper describes some of the salient occurrences of political violence in Cameroon and argues that the presence of specific elements elevates this violence to the level of a serious crime in international law. It is argued herein that crimes against humanity may have been committed during the state action against the Anglophones in Cameroon. It is also argued that the political character of the violence, added to the scale of the victimisation and its systematic and protracted nature, qualify Cameroon as a transitional society engaged in conflict that is in need of transitional justice. Reflecting on the extent of the suffering of the victims of such political violence, this paper discusses the function of the justice system in establishing the truth and holding the perpetrators accountable. Past instances of political violence in Cameroon have been glossed over, but in our opinion, healing a fragmented and disunited Cameroon with its history of grave violations of human rights requires that the perpetrators be held accountable, and that truth and justice should prevail. Such considerations should be factored into the legal and political architecture of a post-conflict, transitional Cameroon.  

What’s in a Name? Questions for a New Monument

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margrethe Troensegaard
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Modern Sculpture ◽  
The Social ◽  
We The People

What is the contemporary condition of the monument? In relation to the current issue’s discussion of immersive and discursive exhibition practices, this essay places itself at a slight remove; rather than to analyse and evaluate specific curatorial strategies it seeks to raise questions of relevance to such practices and begins by moving the discourse out of the museum and into the public space. The point of interrogation here is the monument, a form with a particular capacity to tease and expose the triad we find at the core of any curatorial discourse: the relation between institution, artwork and audience. Following an introductory reflection on how to describe and define a ‘monument’, a term so broadly used it all but loses its value, the text proceeds to examine three cases, Monument de la Renaissance Africaine, Dakar (2010), Danh Vo’s WE THE PEOPLE (DETAIL), various locations (2010-13), and Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument, New York (2013). The sequencing of these geographically and culturally diverse works makes way for an interrogatory piece of writing that addresses the question of permanence versus temporariness of the artwork as exhibition (and the exhibition as artwork), and that of the political agency of the artistic form. Probing the social agency of the monument, the text draws lines between the symbolising capacity once held by modern sculpture and the oscillation between immersion and discursiveness as two complimentary modes of communication. The discursive content or function of the monument (i.e. what it commemorates) is activated through the viewer’s personal, immersive encounter with its form, a form that potentially places its viewer as a participant to the construction of its message rather than as a mere receiver.

scholarly journals The Constructive Power of Slogans in Post-Socialist Poland

1969 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 494-506
Author(s):  
Jaro Stacul
Keyword(s):  
Positive Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Neoliberal Reform ◽  
The People ◽  
The Face

Slogans can tell us a great deal about the ways states attempt to legitimate their neoliberal reform policies, and how the contradictions of the neoliberal project are concealed. Civic Platform, the political force in charge of such reforms that governed Poland from 2007 until 2015, deployed the slogan “We are building Poland” to convey ideas of solidarity and positive change in the face of widespread inequalities. I argue that because slogans have a temporal dimension, understanding their appeal (or lack thereof) entails understanding the ideas about historical time that they mobilise among the people who are exposed to them.

scholarly journals ELITE TRADISIONAL DALAM PERGUMULAN SISTEM RELIGIO POLITICAL POWER

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermanu Joebagio
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Political System ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The People ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
Vertical Mobility

<p>This study was aimed to describe: (1) the relation among political groups in the system of religio political power, (2) the political system when dealing with foreign trade organization (VOC), and also (3) the political system encouraging vertical mobility of the Javanese society. This research employed historical methods, and the data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of historiography greatly regarded diachronic and synchronic aspects. The results of this study showed that religio political power was produced by the process of Islamization. In that political system, there was equality of position between the rulers and the ulama. The ulama as a representation of the people, bring about the consequence that all public policy must be approved by them. Political system is equal to ‘descending of power’. This political system underwent a political change when the central government moved to rural Java, that is changed into nomadism and schizophrenia, because of the strong subordination and repression to the ulama and the opposition groups. The political violence would not build vertical mobility of Javanese people both in education and economic development. Furthermore, this system would face difficulty when deling with the strategy of ex-nihilo by VOC.</p> <p>Key words: religio political power, Islamization, the ulama, ex-nihilo, vertical mobility</p><p> </p> <p>Studi ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan: (1) relasi antar kelompok politik dalam sistem religio political power, (2) sistem politik itu ketika berhadapan dengan organisasi dagang asing, dan (3) sistem politik itu memacu mobilitas vertikal masyarakat Jawa. Riset ini menggunakan adalah metode sejarah, dan pengumpulan data melalui sumber primer dan sekunder. Sementara itu rekonstruksi sejarah utamakan segi diakronik dan sinkronik. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sistem religio political power adalah hasil dari proses Islamisasi. Dalam sistem politik itu terdapat kesejajaran kedudukan antara penguasa dan ulama. Ulama sebagai representasi rakyat memiliki konsekuensi setiap kebijakan publik perlu mendapat persetujuan ulama. Sistem politik mempunyai bentuk yang sama dengan descending of power. Sistem politik ini mengalami perubahan ketika pusat pemerintahan berpindah di pedalaman Jawa, yakni menjadi nomadisme dan schizophrenia, karena kuatnya represi terhadap ulama dan kelompok oposisi. Kekerasan politik itu tidak akan membangun mobilitas vertikal masyarakat Jawa, baik bidang pendidikan maupun pembangunan ekonomi. Bahkan akan menghadapi kesulitan ketika berhadapan dengan strategi ex-nihilo VOC.</p> <p>Kata kunci: religio political power, Islamisasi, ulama, ex-nihilo, dan mobilitas vertikal</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

Representative Democracy and Religious Thought in South Asia

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-136
Author(s):  
Humeira Iqtidar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Polity

What role did popular enthusiasm about democratic participation in the early twentieth century play in the ideas of two key religious revivalists in South Asia: Abul A‘la Maududi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar? This chapter lays out the differently inflected visions of the two thinkers to argue that they were both working through new conceptions of religion and society, which crystallized around the mythical entity “the people.” How to recognize and organize the people who form the constituency as well as the legislators of a democratic polity was the challenge they tackled. They differed sharply in their analysis of nationalism as the glue that held “the people” together, and in their resistance to prevailing European theories of nationalism and representative government. Despite many differences, the two thinkers were united in an enthusiasm for democratic politics. Understanding the political manifestations of their ideas today requires a reckoning with their respective visions of democracy.

Dual Constituent Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The People ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
We The People ◽  
Actual Decision ◽  
The Eu

This chapter addresses the public narrative of ‘We, the people and peoples of Europe’, which presents constituent power in the EU as shared between a European demos and the national demoi, and examines whether it amounts to a systematic model that withstands critical scrutiny. For this purpose, it draws on the political theory of split popular sovereignty, which interprets the EU as a federation (Bund) based on the democratic pillars of European citizens and European peoples. The chapter argues that Jürgen Habermas’s hypothetical notion of a pouvoir constituant mixte, which projects constituent power into the past, can be developed into a future-oriented model for actual decision-making in EU constitutional politics based on Habermas’s own idea of a permanent founding. Assessing the plausibility of this view, the chapter argues that the idea of dual constituent power avoids some of the shortcomings of regional cosmopolitanism and demoi-cracy, but also entails a problematic pre-commitment to the preservation of the EU member states, perplexingly stratifies constituent power across national and supranational levels, and blurs the procedural-institutional line between constituent and constituted powers.

Making We the People

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaihark Hahm ◽  
Sung Ho Kim
Keyword(s):  
The People ◽  
We The People

We the People

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Dahlin
Keyword(s):  
The People ◽  
We The People
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