The Two Fires of ANCAP

2018 ◽  
pp. 115-146
Author(s):  
Daniel Renfrew
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
The State ◽  
Lead Contamination ◽  
Public Enterprise ◽  
Modern State ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Workers ◽  
State Production ◽  
Radical History

This chapter examines debates surrounding lead contamination and the Uruguayan state petroleum enterprise ANCAP. Through ANCAP, the politics of contamination (political ecology) became embroiled with the politics of privatization (political economy), bringing together concerns over the health of citizen bodies and the health of the state. In these overlapping debates, the ANCAP directorship and the state oil-workers union, FANCAP, presented contrasting visions regarding the role and character of both the public enterprise and the modern state in neoliberal times. The chapter traces the roots of organized labor’s militant and radical history of defending the “means of state production,” including its heroic resistance against the dictatorship. It examines the union’s double bind in denouncing the enterprise’s role in contamination through leaded-gasoline production while defending it from privatization.

La valorisation des prestations non-bois: particularités genevoises (essai) | Commercialization of non-wood forest services: the case of Geneva (essay)

2009 ◽  
Vol 160 (8) ◽  
pp. 232-234
Author(s):  
Patrik Fouvy
Keyword(s):  
Forest Regeneration ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
The State ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
Private Forests ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
History Of ◽  
Near Future

The history of the forests in canton Geneva, having led to these being disconnected from productive functions, provides a symptomatic demonstration that the services provided by the forest eco-system are common goods. Having no hope of financial returns in the near future and faced with increasing social demands, the state has invested in the purchase of forest land, financed projects for forest regeneration and improvement of biological diversity and developed infrastructures for visitors. In doing this the state as a public body takes on the provision of services in the public interest. But the further funding for this and for expenses for the private forests, which must be taken into account, are not secured for the future.

The 1912 Duma Elections: The State, the Opposition and the Clergy

Orthodoxia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
F. A. Gayda
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Church

This article deals with the political situation around the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire in 1912 (4th convocation). The main actors of the campaign were the government, local administration, liberal opposition and the clergy of the Orthodox Russian Church. After the 1905 revolution, the “official Church” found itself in a difficult situation. In particular, anti-Church criticism intensified sharply and was expressed now quite openly, both in the press and from the rostrum of the Duma. A consequence of these circumstances was that in this Duma campaign, for the first time in the history of Russian parliamentarianism, “administrative resources” were widely used. At the same time, the authorities failed to achieve their political objectives. The Russian clergy became actively involved in the election campaign. The government sought to use the conflict between the liberal majority in the third Duma and the clerical hierarchy. Duma members launched an active criticism of the Orthodox clergy, using Grigory Rasputin as an excuse. Even staunch conservatives spoke negatively about Rasputin. According to the results of the election campaign, the opposition was even more active in using the label “Rasputinians” against the Holy Synod and the Russian episcopate. Forty-seven persons of clerical rank were elected to the House — three fewer than in the previous Duma. As a result, the assembly of the clergy elected to the Duma decided not to form its own group, but to spread out among the factions. An active campaign in Parliament and the press not only created a certain public mood, but also provoked a political split and polarization within the clergy. The clergy themselves were generally inclined to blame the state authorities for the public isolation of the Church. The Duma election of 1912 seriously affected the attitude of the opposition and the public toward the bishopric after the February revolution of 1917.

scholarly journals Kongen hersker, men regerer ikke - Guvernementalitet, statificering og statspraksis hos Michel Foucault

2018 ◽  
pp. 89-108
Author(s):  
Nicolai Von Eggers ◽  
Mathias Hein Jessen
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
The West ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Michel Foucault developed his now (in)famous neologism governmentality in the first of the two lectures he devoted to ’a history of governmentality, Security, Territory, Population (1977-78) and The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79). Foucault developed this notion in order to do a historical investigation of ‘the state’ or ‘the political’ which did not assume the entity of the state but treated it as a way of governing, a way of thinking about governing. Recently, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has taken up Foucault’s notion of governmentality in his writing of a history of power in the West, most notably in The Kingdom and the Glory. It is with inspiration from Agamben’s recent use of Foucault that Foucault’s approach to writing the history of the state (as a history of governmental practices and the reflection hereof) is revisited. Foucault (and Agamben) thus offer another way of writing the history of the state and of the political, which focuses on different texts and on reading more familiar texts in a new light, thereby offering a new and notably different view on the emergence of the modern state and politics.

The Archive as a “Collective Project”

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-533
Author(s):  
Nilay Özok-Gündoğan
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
State Government ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Governmental Body ◽  
National Memory ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The history of the archive is the history of the state. Or so say conventional approaches to the archives. Until recently, the archive has been seen solely as a site, or rather a repository, of modern state power and governmentality, and a crucial medium for the making and preservation of national memory in the late 19th century. There is a truth to this state-centric perspective: the archive was conceived as a place where governments keep their records; they usually contain a term such as “state,” “government,” or “national” in their names; and they are often funded by and connected to a governmental body.

Including chiefs, maintaining peace? Examining the effects of state–traditional governance interaction on civil peace in sub-Saharan Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katariina Mustasilta
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Traditional Authorities ◽  
Traditional Governance

The continued influence of traditional governance in sub-Saharan Africa has sparked increasing attention among scholars exploring the role of non-state and quasi-state forms of governance in the modern state. However, little attention has been given to cross-country and over-time variation in the interaction between state and traditional governance structures, particularly in regard to its implications for intrastate peace. This study examines the conditions under which traditional governance contributes to state capacity to maintain peace. The article argues that the type of institutional interaction between the state and traditional authority structures influences a country’s overall governance dynamics and its capacity to maintain peace. By combining new data on state–traditional authorities’ interaction in sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2012 with intrastate armed conflict data, I conduct a systematic comparative analysis of whether concordant state–traditional authorities’ interaction strengthens peace. The empirical results support the argument that integrating traditional authorities into the public administration lowers the risk of armed conflict in comparison to when they remain unrecognized by the state. Moreover, the analysis suggests that the added value of this type of interaction is conditional on the colonial history of a country.

scholarly journals Religion and modernity in a secular city: A public theology of différance

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann-Albrecht Meylahn
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Modern State ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religion And Modernity ◽  
Divine Violence ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Legitimate Violence ◽  
Good And Evil

Seeking the good often authorises and legitimises certain forms of violence: violence that defines the state (Benjamin’s law-founding violence) by the exclusion of others and the violence that coerces or binds (religare) the public into a common understanding of the good at the exclusion of other interpretations of that good (Benjamin’s law-maintaining violence). The secular modern state has never been without religion functioning as religare. The modern state, often seen as a peacemaker, is founded on these two forms of ‘legitimate’ violence against what is other or different, just as the peace, prosperity and good of the state is sought through the elimination of the different and a unification of the state under the banner of a ‘common’ good. This ‘legitimate’ violence will always produce the counter-violence of difference (i.e. excluded others) seeking a legitimate place within the common space of the republic (Benjamin’s divine violence). With the rise of religious fundamentalism, institutionalised religion has been allowed to return to the public debate. Is the call for this return one that further sanctions legitimate violence by eating and sharing the fruit of knowledge of good and evil? Is the call the church is hearing one that seeks to clarify and clearly define the good that will bind us (religare) into a stronger and more prosperous and peaceful city – onward Christian soldiers marching as to war? Or is there another calling, one that requires us to be Disciples of Christ – with the Cross of Jesus going on before – entering the space of violence beyond the knowledge of good and evil as peacemakers? In this article, I sought to understand this ‘peacemaking’ space by bringing into dialogue Žižek’s interpretation of Christianity with Derrida’s interpretation of hospitality.

scholarly journals Paternalism and the Public Household

2021 ◽  
pp. 179-211
Author(s):  
Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Economic Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Expenditures ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Public ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Public Economy

The ancient Greek conception of oikonomia is often dismissed as irrelevant for making sense of the contemporary economic world. In this paper, I emphasize a thread that runs through the history of economic thought connecting the oikos to modern public economics. By conceptualizing the public economy as a public household, Richard A. Musgrave (1910–2007) set foot in a long tradition of analogy between the practically oriented household and the state. Despite continuous references to the domestic model by major economists throughout the centuries, the analogy has clashed with liberal values associated with the public sphere since the eighteenth century. Musgrave’s conceptualization of public expenditures represents one episode of this continuing tension. His defense of merit goods, in particular, was rejected by many American economists in the 1960s because it was perceived as a paternalistic intervention by the state. I suggest that the accusation of paternalism should not come as a surprise once the “domestic” elements in Musgrave’s conceptualization of the public sector are highlighted. I develop three points of the analogy in Musgrave’s public household which echo recurring patterns of thought about the state.

7. Institutions and States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regular Patterns

This chapter deals with institutions and states. Institutions are essentially regular patterns of behaviour that provide stability and predictability to social life. Some institutions are informal, with no formally laid down rules such as the family, social classes, and kinship groups. Others are more formalized, having codified rules and organization. Examples include governments, parties, bureaucracies, legislatures, constitutions, and law courts. The state is defined as sovereign, with institutions that are public. After discussing the concept of institutions and the range of factors that structure political behaviour, the chapter considers the multi-faceted concept of the state. It then looks at the history of how the European type of state and the European state system spread around the world between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. It also examines the modern state and some of the differences between strong states, weak states, and democratic states.

Space state: the beginning of new era in the evolution of statehood

2021 ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Sergey F. Udartsev
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Spatial Characteristics ◽  
New Era ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Space Activity ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Space State

The article substantiates that the evolution of earthly statehood naturally leads to its transformation into a cosmic statehood and opens a new era in the development of the state. The utopian nature of political theories in the history of thought is marked both by the completion of the evolution of the state with its global earthly forms, and by the abolition or withering away of the state, as well as the importance of spatial characteristics for understanding the general evolution of statehood. The article contains the beginning of a new, more powerful wave of space activity where all states participate. The reasons for the formation and features of a space state (spatial, institutional, functional, legal, scientific and technical), its possible varieties are highlighted, the possibility of different forms is noted. The purely earthly history of the modern state is coming to the end and the state will further develop as a cosmic phenomenon

Honduras: All-Purpose Militarization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Mani
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Military

The Honduran military has a long history of established roles oriented toward both external defense and internal security and civic action. Since the end of military rule in 1982, the military has remained a key political, economic, and social actor. Politically, the military retains a constitutional mandate as guarantor of the political system and enforcer of electoral rules. Economically, its officers direct state enterprises and manage a massive pension fund obscured from public audit. Socially, the military takes on numerous civic action tasks—building infrastructure, conserving forests, providing healthcare, and policing crime—that make the state appear to be useful to its people and bring the military into direct contact with the public almost daily. As a result, the military has ranked high in public trust in comparison with other institutions of the state. Most significantly, the military has retained the role of arbiter in the Honduran political system. This became brutally clear in the coup of 2009 that removed the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Although new rules enhancing civilian control of the military had been instituted during the 1990s, the military’s authority in politics was restored through the coup that ousted Zelaya. As no civilian politician can succeed without support for and from the military, the missions of the armed forces have expanded substantially so that the military is an “all-purpose” institution within a remarkably weak and increasingly corrupt state.

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