Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Public Debt ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Crowd Control ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reconciliation Process

This concluding chapter uses Burke's theorizing about the social contract, as well as his reflections on the sublime and beautiful, to show how ugliness (as a concept) has seeped into political life, as well as offering reflections on some international comparisons, by showing the links between the gilets jaunes and the Brexit and Trump votes, as well as providing short comparisons with Poland and Chile. A social contract for the future will have to address the issues. A rethinking of the militarization of police forces equipped with weapons of war for crowd control seems essential, but this is unlikely to occur if those who have used these weapons do not come forward to testify to their use in practice. A public reconciliation process, with open and transparent accounting of who has done what and when, possibly granting immunity from prosecution for those who come forward, will go a long way in addressing the social ill caused by the protests. Constitutional revisions can go a long way in addressing systemic inequalities, even if the outcomes of the new constitutional arrangements do not exactly meet the demands of either party. In terms of economic justice there are also solutions. As an alternative to increased inequalities caused by public debt, Graeber proposes that all new moneys could be issued by citizens, rather than financial institutions, creating wealth for all instead of for specific companies and their shareholders. If the current wounds inflicted to the social contract are to heal, it seems inevitable that widespread changes occur, rather than piecemeal band-aids.

A Renewal of the Social Contract

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Economic Independence ◽  
Family Assistance ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
New Form

This chapter provides a reflection on the new social contract, taking Diderot as dialectician of change, and offer ways to think about the future of the tradition. It shows that such a model is possible. A new social contract will take into account the need for liberty, democracy and economic justice. Most working class people have finished high school and been awarded a Baccalauréat, and many are home-owners of one of the millions of bungalows built throughout peripheral France. Yet their ability to secure economic independence, a promise of the Enlightenment, has not materialized. Many are worse off than their parents, and those without family assistance are extremely exposed to the ebb and flow of macro-economic trends such as global slowdown and recession. A social contract of the future has to address these needs that were posited as the sine qua non condition for social advancement more than two centuries ago. The revolt of the gilets jaunes against rent-seeking economic actors, such as landlords, motorway management companies, insurance and mortgage companies, and utilities, is testament to the economic plight that needs redressing. Although the gilets jaunes have failed to organize themselves politically in the traditional sense, they have provided one of the strongest political challenges to the very existence of the French state as it currently stands. It is this new form of politics, which does not go through political parties but demands social and economic justice directly, that is at the centre of the new social contract they demand.

scholarly journals A Call for Judicial Reform in Egypt

ICL Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shams Al Din Al Hajjaji
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Judicial Reform ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Judicial Authority ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood

AbstractThe social contract in Egypt has changed dramatically five times in the past decade. Mubarak made substantial amendments in 2005 and 2007, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) ratified the 2011 Constitutional Declaration, the Muslim Brotherhood adopted the 2012 Constitution and, finally, Al-Sisi/Mansur proclaimed the 2014 Constitution. Currently, Egypt faces social, economic, political and legal problems. The Egyptian judiciary plays a vital role in the inability to respond to these problems. This research argues that the call for judicial reform should be revived to face contemporary challenges. These challenges are the result of the absence of serious judicial reform in the past four decades. The 1973 Judicial Authority Law was a result of the social contract presented in the 1971 Constitution. The research lists the reasons for adopting a new judicial authority law. In the first section, the social aspect is embodied in the protection of freedoms, judicial transparency and judicial legitimacy. The second section dealing with economic reasons for reform is divided into two parts. The first deals with Independent Bodies and Regulatory Agencies. The second issue reveals the role of the judiciary in the successive failures of the IBRA. The third section deals with the role of the judiciary in political life. The fourth section presents the legal reasons for judicial reform.

John Rawls

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the impact of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice on the liberal audience that took it up. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls offers a defense of civil disobedience that would make politically motivated disobedience a much more acceptable part of our political life than either the U.S. Supreme Court or the English judiciary seems likely to contemplate. Furthermore, his views about the subservience of economic institutions to “social justice” place him firmly on one side of what is currently the most fiercely contested dividing line in politics in Britain today. The chapter also considers Rawls's use of the theory of the social contract to support his arguments; his principle of “the priority of liberty”; and his “difference principle.” It asserts that Rawls is safe from those critics who maintain that what purports to be a defense of liberalism actually collapses into a wholesale collectivism.

Women in Power and Decision making Positions : Conditions and Restraints

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Slow Progress

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!

D?r al-?arb as the Motherland? The Muslim Tatars of (the Grand Duchy of) Lithuania and Social Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Grand Duchy

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.

The Ideology of Socialism and the Armenian Political Parties

wisdom ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113
Author(s):  
Gegham HOVHANNISYAN
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Given

The article covers the manifestations and peculiarities of the ideology of socialism in the social-political life of Armenia at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. General characteristics, aims and directions of activity of the political organizations functioning in the Armenian reality within the given time-period, whose program documents feature the ideology of socialism to one degree or another, are given (Hunchakian Party, Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian Social-democrats, Specifics, Socialists-revolutionaries). The specific peculiarities of the national-political life of Armenia in the given time-period and their impact on the ideology of political forces are introduced.

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