Conclusion Structural. Aporias: Questions, Thoughts, and Contemporary Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-220
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Politics

Migrant Diplomacies: Rethinking Diplomacy Beyond State-Centric Perspectives. A Civic Bi-Nationality Experience from North America

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Alejo
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Migrant Activism ◽  
Point Of Departure

There is a pressing need to extend our thinking about diplomacy beyond state-centric perspectives, as in the name of sovereignty and national interests, people on move are confronting virtual, symbolic and/or material walls and frames of policies inhibiting their free movement. My point of departure is to explore migrant activism and global politics through the transformation of diplomacy in a globalised world. Developing an interdisciplinary dialogue between new diplomacy and sociology, I evidence the emergence of global sociopolitical formations created through civic bi-nationality organisations. Focusing on the agent in interaction with structures, I present a theoretical framework and strategy for analysing the practices of migrant diplomacies as an expression of contemporary politics. A case study from North America regarding returned families in Mexico City provides evidence of how these alternative diplomacies are operating.

PENSAMENTO POLÍTICO EM GIORGIO AGAMBEN

Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Political Freedom ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Control ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>

Presidential Privilege and the Freedom of Information Act

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Freedom Of Information Act ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Government Secrecy

Executive privilege (EP) as a political tool has created a grey area of constitutional power between the legislative and executive branches. By focusing on the post-WWII political usage of executive privilege, this research utilizes a social learning perspective to examine the power dynamics between Congress and the president when it comes to government secrecy and public information. Social learning provides the framework to understand how the Cold War's creation of the modern American security state led to a paradigm shift in the executive branch. This shift altered the politics of the presidency and impacted relations with Congress through extensive use of EP and denial of congressional requests for information. When viewed through a social learning lens, the institutional politics surrounding the development of the Freedom of Information Act is intricately entwined with EP as a political power struggle of action-reaction between the executive and legislative branches. Using extensive archival research, this historical analysis examines the politics surrounding the modern use of executive privilege from Truman through Nixon as an action-reaction of checks on power from the president and Congress, where each learns and responds based on the others previous actions. The use of executive privilege led to the Freedom of Information Act showing how policy can serve as a congressional check on executive power, and how the politics surrounding this issue influence contemporary politics.

Other People's Struggles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Owen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
British History ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Do So

Other People’s Struggles is the first attempt in over forty years to explain the place of “conscience constituents” in social movements. Conscience constituents are people who participate in a movement but do not stand to benefit if it succeeds. Why do such people participate when they do not stand to benefit? Why are they sometimes present and sometimes absent in social movements? Why and when is their participation welcome to those who do stand to benefit, and why and when is it not? The work proposes an original theory to answer these questions, crossing discipline boundaries to draw on the findings of social psychology, philosophy, and normative political theory, in search of explanations of why people act altruistically and what it means to others when they do so. The theory is illustrated by examples from British history, including the antislavery movement, the women’s suffrage and liberation movements, labor and socialist movements, anticolonial movements, antipoverty movements, and movements for global justice. Other People’s Struggles also contributes to new debates concerning the rights and wrongs of “speaking for others.” Debates concerning the limits of solidarity—who can be an “ally” and on what terms—have become very topical in contemporary politics, especially in identity politics and in the new “populist” movements. The book provides a theoretical and empirical account of how these questions have been addressed in the past and how they might be framed today.

A Later Hellenistic Debate about the Value of Classical Athenian Civic Ideals?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gray
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Opposing Camp

This chapter argues that the later Hellenistic period (c.150 BCE–1 BCE) was a period of intense disagreement about Classical Athenian civic ideals, which can be partly reconstructed through comparison of epigraphic, historiographical, and philosophical sources. Some later Hellenistic Greeks championed the more community-centred and utopian aspects of Classical Athenian political culture, both democratic and philosophical, as a way of insisting on equality and solidarity in contemporary politics. In an opposing camp, Polybius and certain Stoics explicitly reacted against those same community-centred Classical Athenian ideals, arguing instead for ideals which gave more scope to competition and self-interest, within the bounds of firm contracts, rules, and property-rights. The chapter suggests that the debate it identifies came to a head in Athens in 88 BCE, when a Peripatetic tyrant seized power in Athens, and in subsequent responses to those events, especially Posidonius’ account of them.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.E.M. Lippiatt
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Governing Institutions

Historians of political development in the High Middle Ages often focus on the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as the generations in which monarchy finally triumphed over aristocracy to create a monopoly on governing institutions in Western Europe. However, it was precisely in this period that Simon of Montfort emerged from his modest forest lordship in France to conquer a principality stretching from the Pyrenees to the Rhône. A remarkable ascendancy in any period, it is perhaps especially so in its contrast with the accepted historiographical narrative. Despite the supposed triumph of monarchy during his lifetime, Simon’s meteoric career took place largely outside of royal auspices. Simon’s experience provides a challenge to an uncomplicated or teleological understanding of contemporary politics as effectively national affairs directed by kings.

Framing Effects and Group Differences in Public Opinion about Prison Pell Grants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Travis M. Johnston ◽  
Kevin H. Wozniak
Keyword(s):  
College Education ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Pell Grant ◽  
Pell Grants ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Political Partisanship ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
College Classes ◽  
American Society ◽  
Analyze Data

ABSTRACT After years of gridlock on the issue, a bipartisan group of members of Congress struck a deal in 2020 to restore eligibility for inmates to access Pell Grants. Evidence indicates that college education programs in prison reduce recidivism and, consequently, state corrections expenditures, but legislators in prior decades feared that voters would resent government subsidy of college classes for criminals. To assess the contemporary politics of the issue, we analyze data from a framing experiment embedded in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We find that Americans, on average, neither support nor oppose the proposal to restore inmates’ Pell Grant eligibility; however, exposure to arguments about the proposal’s benefits to inmates in particular and American society more broadly both increased subjects’ support. We further explore how this framing effect varies across political partisanship and racial resentment. We find that both frames elicited a positive response from subjects, especially among Democrats and subjects with low or moderate racial resentment.

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