scholarly journals Anti-Politics and Civic Identity: How to Revitalize the Public Sphere in a Democracy?

Politeja ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5 (68)) ◽  
pp. 159-171
Author(s):  
Marcin Tobiasz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Civic Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Formal Representation ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Free Flow Of Information

Contemporary democracy requires rethinking on the normative level and certain changes in the institutional and cultural dimensions. To this end, we should start by revising our perception of the public sphere and the role that citizens have to play in it. First of all, it should be emphasized that the public sphere is composed of various citizens’ forums, which should be effectively included in the political decision-making process. New institutional solutions must ensure the free flow of information between citizens and take into account different, even minority points of view, because democracy, if it is not to be exclusive, cannot be limited only to formal representation and closed, top-defined forms of discourse. In fact, people are unequal in terms of their civic competences, both in terms of their individual characteristics, as well as their social position, and democracy should neutralize these inequalities. These problems cannot be solved on purely theoretical grounds. Indeed, the clash of different views and arguments in the political debate is a constitutive element of politics, and therefore they have to be negotiated in practice by actual citizens. The lack of such solutions and, consequently, the experiences enabling the development of civic competences, not only result in a crisis of democracy, but also lead to the negation of the very essence of politics.

The Chaste Parricide: Murder, Femininity and the Subversion of Authority in the Reception of the First Performance of Shelley’s The Cenci, 1886

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-211
Author(s):  
Lee Michael-Berger
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
True Story ◽  
The Public Sphere

The story of The Cenci’s first production is intriguing, since the play, based on the true story of a sixteenth-century Roman family and revolving around the theme of parricide, was published in 1819 but was denied a licence for many years. The Shelley Society finally presented it in 1886, although it was vetoed by the Lord Chamberlain, and to avoid censorship it had to be proclaimed as a private event. This article examines the political and social context of the production, especially the reception of actress’s Alma Murray’s rendition of Beatrice, the parricide, thus probing the ways in which The Cenci question was reframed, and placed in the public sphere, despite censorship. The staging of the play became the site of a political debate and the performance – an act of defiance against institutionalised power, but also an act of defiance against the alleged tyranny of mass culture.

scholarly journals PUBLIC SPHERE OF POLITICS AND DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY: DEMARCATION CRITERIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Olexander Serghijovych Tokovenko ◽  
Oleksii Anatoliyovych Tretiak
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Public Sphere

The prospects of development of modern political theory in the context of filling the new semantic values of concepts of political discourse, political communication and public political representation are considered. The network of newly established democratic institutions, which required firm defenition, practicing public political debate and not distorted political communication defined. With the help of the comparative method, the common and different conceptual views of political debate in interpreting deliberative democracy and the public sphere of politics studied. The content of the concept of the public sphere of politics as a factor of coverage of the transition of democratic public institutions of transformational countries from the state of declarative to a state of sustainable democracy is discussed. Public sphere of politics as mainly unifying concept that determines the possibility of various aspects of joint interpretation of political realities and possibilities of the political participants’ appearance for any topic studied. The subject areas of the concepts of deliberative politics and the public sphere of politics regarding the ways of personal and institutional self-presentation are determined. The specifics of the reflection of political conflict and political decisions within the limits of the values of the public sphere of politics and deliberative democracy are revealed. The features of common approaches to the interpretation of political pluralism and political competition in the semantic structures of the public sphere of politics and deliberative democracy are explored. It emphasizes the flexibility of the concept of the public sphere of politics as a concept that encompasses a large number of events and phenomena of political communication. The possibility of a non-idealist approach to public political presentations on the Internet is substantiated. The political meaning dimensions of political deliberation and political manifestation which differ in explanations background of individual behavior, based on the ancient principle of political pragmatism and defending of selfish interests considered.The explanatory potential of a deliberative policy and the public sphere of politics is singled out. The peculiarities of crossing the subject areas of the public sphere of politics and deliberative democracy in the context of the functioning of modern civil society are established.

The Portuguese Road to Neoliberalism (1976–1989)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Ricardo Noronha
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
State Planning ◽  
The Public ◽  
Development Models ◽  
Market Order ◽  
Privatisation Programme ◽  
Market Approach ◽  
The Public Sphere

The Portuguese constitution, passed in April 1976, considered the nationalisations undertaken after the Carnation Revolution to be ‘irreversible’, prescribing a development model based on state planning. Changes made to the constitutional text, in 1989, allowed for a privatisation programme that curtailed government intervention and reinforced market provision. This mirrored a previous shift in the public sphere. Whereas political debate in 1976 was mostly centred on state-led development models, the next decade witnessed the rise of a pro-market approach. Two crises of the balance of payments encouraged a growing number of economists, businessmen, journalists and politicians to argue for the need to revise the constitution, enhancing the role and scope of markets. This article focuses on the rise of a neoliberal intellectual field in Portugal between 1976 and 1989, analysing its efforts to overcome the legacy of the Carnation Revolution and build a competitive market order in a semiperipheral context.

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.

scholarly journals PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Luís Guilherme Nascimento de Araujo ◽  
Claudio Everaldo Dos Santos ◽  
Elizabeth Fontoura Dorneles ◽  
Ionathan Junges ◽  
Nariel Diotto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Press ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Military

The political and economic crises faced today, evidenced by the manifestos of political parties and the texts published in social networks and in the press, point to Brazilian society the possibility of different directions, including that of an autocratic regime, with the return of the military to the public sphere. This article discusses the movements of acceptance and resistance to the military regime that was implemented in Brazil with the coup of 1964. It is observed that the military uprising received at that time the support of a large part of the Brazilian population, which sought ways to maintain its socioeconomic status to the detriment of a majority that perceived itself vulnerable in view of the forms of maintenance and expansion of power used by the regime. In this context, Tropicalism emerges as an example of a contesting movement. This text approaches the song "Culture and civilization" by Gilberto Gil, performed by Gal Costa, relating the ideas present in this composition with the understandings of politics and culture, in a multidisciplinary proposal, seeking to understand the resistance and counter-resistance movements that emerged in Brazil at the time.

scholarly journals Politics and everyday life in Serbia in 2005: Views of politics, change of social system, the public sphere

2005 ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Spasic
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Scene

The paper offers an analysis of the interview data collected in the project "Politics and everyday life: Three years later" in terms of three main topics: attitudes to the political sphere, change of social system, and the democratic public sphere. The analysis focuses on ambivalences expressed in the responses which, under the surface of overall disappointment and discontent, may contain preserved results of the previously achieved "social learning" and their positive potentials. The main objective was to examine to what extent the processes of political maturation of citizens, identified in the 2002 study, have continued. After pointing to a number of shifts in people?s views of politics which generally do not contradict the tendencies outlined in 2002 (such as deemotionalization and depersonalization of politics, insistence on efficiency of public officials and on a clearer articulation of positions on the political scene), it is argued that the process of rationalization of political culture has not stopped, but it manifests itself differently in changed circumstances. The republican euphoria of 2002 has been replaced by resignation, with a stronger individualist orientation and a commitment to professional achievement.

Approaching the Hellenistic Polis through Modern Political Theory: The Public Sphere, Pluralism and Prosperity

2018 ◽  
pp. 68-98
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gray
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy

This chapter discusses methods and problems in reconstructing an inclusive, dynamic picture of the political thought and debates of the Hellenistic cities (c. 323– 31 BC), drawing on theories and models from modern political and social theory. It shows the benefits of integrating together the widest range of possible evidence, from Hellenistic philosophy to the most everyday inscriptions, in order to reconstruct for the Hellenistic world the kind of complex, wide-ranging picture of political thought advocated by P. Rosanvallon and others in the study of modern political thinking. When studied in this way, the political thinking and rhetoric of Hellenistic philosophers, intellectuals and citizens reveal attempts to reconcile the Greek polis with ideals of cosmopolitanism and social inclusion, without diluting political vitality. As evidence for this political vitality, the paper demonstrates is the fruitful interlocking and mutual counterbalancing within the Hellenistic public sphere of the three types of political discourse studied in turn in Ober’s trilogy on Classical Athens: political lobbying and negotiation, including rival attempts to shape civic values; philosophical and critical reflection about the foundations of politics; and rationalistic consideration of efficiency, especially the devising and advertisement of incentives.

Misguided Ancients

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Kathleen Wellman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Arguments ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Right

Although the ancient Greeks and Romans have long been appreciated as foundations for Western civilization, for these textbooks, the Greeks’ philosophy, gods, and immorality tar them as godless humanists. Nonetheless, the Greeks and the Romans allow these curricula to introduce several key social, political, and moral arguments. They assess whether ancient civilizations implemented the “family values” of the political right as it emerged in the 1970s. Thus the Greeks were commendable in excluding women from the public sphere and the Romans for their strong patriarchal families. But Rome fell when it failed to maintain family values. These textbooks disparage the Romans to downplay their influence on the American founding. Furthermore, the rise of Islam reveals the presence of Satan in the world. These curricula’s repudiation of the classical tradition reflects not only contemporary concerns of the religious right but also American anti-intellectualism.

scholarly journals I Don't Want to Be a Citizen (if it Means I Have to Watch the ABC)

2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan McKee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper argues that much writing about media and citizenship tends to rely on a set of realist or structuralist assumptions about what constitutes a state, a citizen and politics. Because of these assumptions, other forms of social organisation that could reasonably be described as nations, and other forms of social engagement that could be called citizenship are excluded from consideration. One effect of this blindness is that certain identities, and the cultural formations associated with them, continue to be overvalued as more real and important than others. Areas of culture that are traditionally while, masculine, middle-class and heterosexual remain central in debates, while the political processes of citizens of, for example, a Queer nation, continue to be either ignored or devalued as being somehow trivial, unimportant or less real. The paper demonstrates that this need not be the case — that the language of nation and citizenship can reasonably be expanded to include these other forms of social organisation, and that when such a conceptual move is made, we can find ways of describing contemporary culture that attempt to understand the public-sphere functions of the media without falling back into traditional prejudices against feminised, Queer, working class or non-white forms of culture.

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