Urban Environmental Politics meets Urban Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-208
Author(s):  
Margaret Haderer
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Grassroots Politics ◽  
Environmental Discourses ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Sustainability Initiatives ◽  
Planetary Processes

Two claims are common in environmental discourses: that cities are key sites of intervention for a shift towards greater sustainability and that grassroots sustainability initiatives embody particularly promising drivers of such a shift. Drawing on Lefebvre, this chapter challenges ›episteme of the urban‹ that confine cities to ›sites‹ and argues that the planetary ›processes‹ that underpin given sites require more attention in light of socio-ecological crises. The chapter also challenges the common ›doxa‹ that ›truly‹ transformative interventions operate at a distance from dominant political institutions, such as law, and introduces ›heterodox right-claims‹ as an alternative political strategy - also for grassroots politics.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Right to the City, Rethinking Urban Environmentalism: From Lifeworld Environmentalism to Planetary Environmentalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Margaret Haderer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
Critical Urban Theory ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Environmentalism

In the environmental politics literature, cities are commonly framed as key sites for a shift towards greater sustainability and urban grassroots initiatives, such as food co-ops, urban gardening initiatives, repair cafés, and libraries of things, are commonly portrayed as such a shift’s key drivers. This paper develops a critical perspective on both common portrayals. It does so by drawing on critical urban theory, especially Lefebvre’s Right to the City. First, inspired by Lefebvre’s critique of city-centrism, the paper argues that the scope and limits of urban environmentalism hinge not only on the goals pursued but also on how the urban is framed. Urban environmentalism may mean mere lifeworld environmentalism: the greening of cities as if there were (relatively) bounded sites. Yet urban environmentalism may also mean planetary environmentalism: the mapping, problematization, and transformation of unsustainable urbanization processes that underpin given sites and lifeworlds, but also operate at beyond the latter—at a societal and planetary scale. Second, inspired by Lefebvre’s reformulation of right claims as a transformative political tool, this paper takes issue with environmental practices and discourses that present society’s niches, cracks, and margins as a key fermenting ground for radical environmental change. Since not only institutional but also bottom-up pursuits of more sustainable nature-society relations often remain stuck in mere lifeworld reform, this paper foregrounds heterodox right claims as an underexplored modus operandi in active pursuits of and discourses on radical environmental change. Heterodox right claims mean the active appropriation of dominant political languages, such as the language of right, while seeking to change the latter’s grammar. What this may mean in the realm of environmental politics, will be spelled out at hand of the example of claims to a right to public transport.

Development within the limits of order, 1820–70

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Toye
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
The Common ◽  
State List ◽  
The French Revolution

After the upheavals of the French Revolution, Enlightenment thinkers were blamed for loosening the bonds of society. In nineteenth-century France, Saint-Simon advocated a social compromise whereby scientists and artists planned the path of progress while the propertied classes retained political power albeit acting as trustees for the interests of the poor. Comte called for a scientific sociology to inform the design of political institutions. In Britain, Bentham rejected the doctrine of natural rights in favour of the principle of utility, while J. S. Mill flirted with Comte’s positivism briefly. Marx made little impact and socialism came in the guise of Fabianism and middle-class trusteeship for the poor. In Germany, Hegel interpreted the French Revolution as a phase in a moral struggle for freedom and called for freedom to be reconciled with the idea of the common good embodied in the state. List envisaged the common good as protectionist trade policy.

scholarly journals Replicating Silicon Valley? Law and Human Capital in the Making of China's Tech Startups

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Li-Wen LIN
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
High Velocity ◽  
Stock Options ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Innovation Economy

Abstract The rise of China's tech companies in the global economy raises an urgent need to understand how China incubates its tech startups. China's tech startup ecosystem presents two puzzling legal arrangements for human capital in light of Silicon Valley's experience, the co-existence of enforceable non-compete agreements and the high-velocity labour market, and the common use of stock options with a buyback norm. This article delves into the peculiarities of China's legal and political institutions to resolve these legal puzzles. This article also speaks to a global policy debate about the replicability of Silicon Valley and the necessity of such replication. The Chinese experience offers opposite examples showing the replication complexity: replication yet with deformed practices, and non-replication yet with similar outcomes. The findings suggest that there is unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all model for creating an innovation economy.

Becoming ‘pet slaves’ in urban China: Transspecies urban theory, single professional women and their companion animals

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802199172
Author(s):  
Chris KK Tan ◽  
Tingting Liu ◽  
Xiaojun Gao
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Women ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Professional Women ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Traditional Marriage ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Material Conditions

Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites for exploring gendered power relations. Reflecting on the growing importance of companion animals, this study investigates the roles that these animals now play in the lives of unmarried women in urban China. Using transspecies urban theory to examine interview data gathered primarily from Guangzhou, we draw three conclusions. Firstly, as material conditions increasingly define pet keeping, companion animals have become both a class symbol and a safe refuge from the stressful demands of working life. Secondly, as professional Chinese women construct positive intimate relationships with their companions to preserve their autonomy as persons at work, they increasingly turn their backs on traditional marriage and family in an instantiation of ‘emergent femininity’. Thirdly, pets offer a new venue of online sociality for their owners. By centring women in Chinese urban studies, we argue that companion animals co-construct the living conditions of their urban, female, middle-class owners.

Społeczne i kulturowe determinanty funkcjonowania państwa u progu XXI wieku

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (282) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Michał Strzelecki
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
The Common ◽  
Civic Awareness ◽  
Political Scene

The contemporary state crisis is a derivative of complex economic and social processes. His indicators include not only the visible increase in the intensity of political conflicts (both on a micro and macro scale), the revival and development of separatist tendencies, and the weakening of the role of the state as the basic instrument of organizing collective life. It is also increasing fragmentation of the political scene, the development of particularisms, weakening and progressive dysfunctionality of existing political institutions, increasing economic rivalry and the collapse of the generally accepted axiological system, which is accompanied by increasingly clear questioning of the idea of the common good and progressing pragmatism and egoism. An important element is therefore the disappearance of civic awareness and activity. The intensification of these disturbing tendencies is certainly not supported by the modern education system, whose hallmarks are commercialization and economization, withdrawal of the state and professionalization.

Sex, the brain and hypertension: brain oestrogen receptors and high blood pressure risk factors

2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Hay
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Older Women ◽  
Premenopausal Women ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Oestrogen Receptors ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Underlying Risk

Hypertension is a major contributor to worldwide morbidity and mortality rates related to cardiovascular disease. There are important sex differences in the onset and rate of hypertension in humans. Compared with age-matched men, premenopausal women are less likely to develop hypertension. However, after age 60, the incidence of hypertension increases in women and even surpasses that seen in older men. It is thought that changes in levels of circulating ovarian hormones as women age may be involved in the increase in hypertension in older women. One of the key mechanisms involved in the development of hypertension in both men and women is an increase in sympathetic nerve activity (SNA). Brain regions important for the regulation of SNA, such as the subfornical organ, the paraventricular nucleus and the rostral ventral lateral medulla, also express specific subtypes of oestrogen receptors. Each of these brain regions has also been implicated in mechanisms underlying risk factors for hypertension such as obesity, stress and inflammation. The present review brings together evidence that links actions of oestrogen at these receptors to modulate some of the common brain mechanisms involved in the ability of hypertensive risk factors to increase SNA and blood pressure. Understanding the mechanisms by which oestrogen acts at key sites in the brain for the regulation of SNA is important for the development of novel, sex-specific therapies for treating hypertension.

1. Making Sense of Earth’s Politics: A Discourse Approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Environmental Discourses ◽  
The Way

This edition examines the politics of the Earth through reference to discourses based on the argument that language matters, that the way we construct, interpret, discuss, and analyze environmental problems has all kinds of consequences. The goal is to elucidate the basic structure of the discourses that have dominated recent environmental politics, and to present their history, conflicts, and transformations. The text discusses four basic environmental discourses: environmental problem solving, limits and survival, sustainability, and green radicalism. This introduction provides an overview of the changing terms of environmental politics, questions to ask about discourses, the differences that discourses make, and the uses of discourse analysis.

Informal Power Structures and Grassroots Politics in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh

Social Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-622
Author(s):  
Balbir Singh
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Himachal Pradesh ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Grassroots Politics ◽  
Local Deity ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
Caste Groups ◽  
Formal Power

The study, based on outputs obtained from villages of Shillai block in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, looks at the informal power structure found in the state’s rural areas. Both formal and the informal power structures have historically coexisted but we will study various factors that empower informal power structures and critically contrast them to the equality-based, constitutionally legalised formal power structures. This entails an understanding of the basis of mobilisation and relationships among different caste groups, the role and influence of local deity institutions, the traditional elitist strata as well as the nature of institutions like Khumlis and their subsequent relationship with formal political institutions. This purposive, investigative and participatory study was conducted in the villages of Shillai block where the process of modernisation has been very slow. This is probably why the historically privileged, traditional elite and informal institutions continue to dominate the entire social structure. The marginalised stratum of society has consequently received minimum participation and representation in formal institutions or the legislating, executing and adjudicating of policies and decisions.

Bridge over Troubled Water – A Semantic Approach to Purposes and Goals in International Criminal Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 929-957
Author(s):  
Alexander Heinze
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Semantic Description ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Ranking Order ◽  
Common Understanding

International tribunals are both legal and political institutions and their list of goals is manifold. Hard cases carry an inflated reference to ‘purposes’ and ‘goals’ of these institutions – despite the herculean task of achieving these goals, the inherent tension between them and the lack of a ranking order. This article borrows from studies of both the politics of organisational decision-making and language philosophy to determine the meaning of ‘purpose’ and ‘goal’. Against the common understanding that uses both terms interchangeably, a distinction between ‘purpose’ and ‘goal’ goes beyond a mere semantic description and can actually offer a classification that might be used as a coarse screen to separate ‘core goals’ from other goals, provide a weak ranking order and relativise the alleged obligation to achieve these goals.

Społeczne i kulturowe determinanty funkcjonowania państwa u progu XXI wieku

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (282) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Michał Strzelecki
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
The Common ◽  
Civic Awareness ◽  
Political Scene

The contemporary state crisis is a derivative of complex economic and social processes. His indicators include not only the visible increase in the intensity of political conflicts (both on a micro and macro scale), the revival and development of separatist tendencies, and the weakening of the role of the state as the basic instrument of organizing collective life. It is also increasing fragmentation of the political scene, the development of particularisms, weakening and progressive dysfunctionality of existing political institutions, increasing economic rivalry and the collapse of the generally accepted axiological system, which is accompanied by increasingly clear questioning of the idea of the common good and progressing pragmatism and egoism. An important element is therefore the disappearance of civic awareness and activity. The intensification of these disturbing tendencies is certainly not supported by the modern education system, whose hallmarks are commercialization and economization, withdrawal of the state and professionalization.

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