Melville’s Motley Crew: History and Constituent Power in Billy Budd

2012 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-336
Author(s):  
David J. Drysdale
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
National Discourse ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Billy Budd

This essay reads Herman Melville’s final novel Billy Budd (written 1886–1891) in light of recent scholarly interventions into "oceanic studies." Melville’s parable of authority and resistance reveals how oceanic forms of power are contained and appropriated by national discourse. Focusing especially on the vexed relationship between the eponymous "Handsome Sailor" and Captain Vere, the essay claims that Billy Budd depicts the conflict between the transformative potential of what Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker term "hydrarchy" and the "formed, measured forms" favored by Vere and the nation-state he represents. In narrating Billy Budd’s incorporation into the machinery of state power on board the Bellipotent, Melville’s novella reveals the complicity between official accounts of history and the counterinsurgent project of colonial power. Even as Melville depicts this process of historical fashioning, however, he also points to ways in which such a logic might be resisted by a canny reader who looks to the "ragged edges" of narrative.

scholarly journals Constituent power and civil disobedience: Beyond the nation-state?

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E Scheuerman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Proper Interpretation

Radical democratic political theorists have used the concept of constituent power to sketch ambitious models of radical democracy, while many legal scholars deploy it to make sense of the political and legal dynamics of constitutional politics. Its growing popularity notwithstanding, I argue that the concept tends to impede a proper interpretation of civil disobedience, conceived as nonviolent, politically motivated lawbreaking evincing basic respect for law. Contemporary theorists who employ it cannot distinguish between civil disobedience and other related, yet ultimately different, modes of political illegality (e.g. conscientious objection, resistance, revolution). The essay also examines Jürgen Habermas’ recent contributions to a theory of mixed or dualistic (postnational) constituent power, conceding that Habermas avoids many theoretical and political ills plaguing competing radical democratic theoretical retrievals. Nonetheless, Habermas’ attempt to salvage the idea of constituent power as part of his reformist agenda for the European Union not only breaks with his earlier understandable skepticism about the idea but also risks trimming the admirably ambitious sails of his radical democratic interpretation of civil disobedience.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 210-218
Author(s):  
Ana Aliverti
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
State Power ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Northern State ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Line Officers

The Conclusion reflects on the key contributions of the book, revisiting some of the concepts and arguments presented in the Introduction. The section concludes by posing a number of questions on the implications of the findings presented for the academic field of policing and, more importantly, for social justice and democratic governance. I argue that migration policing is a privileged entry point to understanding the relationship between policing and society in a globalized, postcolonial world. The policing of immigration subverts—or rather unveils—the veneer of legality in the work of maintaining order. By foregrounding the non-rational, magic-like operation of state power, the book intended to unsettle rigid received epistemologies to theorizing policing in northern state bureaucracies. Ultimately, the morally and politically contested domain where front-line officers operate, the fragility, contingency, and provisionality of their authority, the fortuitous, capricious, and arbitrary nature of their decisions, the futility of the violence and harms they exert and the pains they endure, reveal also a frail, impotent, and inchoate state seeking to assert itself amid a fluid, murky, interconnected, and polarized world. The impetus to reassert the national by enforcing a bordered order reveals the exclusionary foundations of social democratic institutions and poses serious questions about the viability of these institutions and the modern nation-state to foster social justice. Equally, this juncture is an opportunity to think anew our political and economic institutions, take stock of global interdependence and its implications for livelihoods, and foster new forms of human conviviality.

scholarly journals Hybrid Pathways to Orthodoxy in Brunei Darussalam: Bureaucratised Exorcism, Scientisation and the Mainstreaming of Deviant-Declared Practices

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik M. Müller
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
State Power ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Brunei Darussalam ◽  
Japanese Water ◽  
Global Condition ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Historical Trajectory

This article investigates the bureaucratisation of Islam in Brunei and its interlinkages with socio-cultural changes. It elucidates how realisations of state-enforced Islamic orthodoxy and purification produce locally unique meanings, while simultaneously reflecting much broader characteristics of the contemporary global condition. The article first introduces a theoretical perspective on the bureaucratisation of Islam as a social phenomenon that is intimately intertwined with the state's exercise of classificatory power and related popular processes of co-producing, and sometimes appropriating symbolic state power. Second, it outlines the historical trajectory of empowering Brunei's national ideology, Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB). It then explores social imaginaries and bureaucratic representations of “deviant”-declared practices, before illustrating how these practices become reinvented within the parameters of state power as “Sharia-compliant” services to the nation state. Simultaneously, national-religious protectionism is paradoxically expressed in thoroughly globalised terms and shaped by forces the state cannot (entirely) control. Newly established Sharia-serving practices become culturally re-embedded, while also flexibly drawing upon multiple transnational cultural registers. In the main ethnographic example, bureaucratised exorcism, Japanese water-crystal photography and scientisation fuse behind the “firewall” of MIB. These hybrid pathways to orthodoxy complicate the narratives through which they are commonly framed.

The Nationalism of the Affluent

2020 ◽  
pp. 142-152
Author(s):  
Yael Tamir
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Discourse ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Moment

This chapter discusses the origin of the second kind of nationalism. It analyzes how members of minority nations are lured to question the existing national/political status quo when political power is eroded and the state faces a legitimization crisis. Yet, unlike the nationalism of the vulnerable that seeks to strengthen the nation-state, separatist nationalism wishes to seize the moment and loosen existing political frameworks. The chapter then elaborates the aims of separatism to recruit the support of all fellow nationals and form a cross-class coalition. In this sense, it is an inclusive kind of nationalism that labors to make its reference group as large and prosperous as possible. The chapter then turns to explore the power of utilitarian arguments to determine the construction of future states. Ultimately, it analyzes how the European Union led to the reemergence of small nations' nationalism. The chapter notes that today's separatist nationalism is the nationalism of small affluent nations that were oppressed by the threshold principle and were excluded from the national discourse because of utilitarian considerations.

The War of “Who Is Who”: Autochthony, Nationalism, and Citizenship in the Ivoirian Crisis

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Marshall-Fratani
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
The West ◽  
Liminal Spaces ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ways Of Life

Abstract:Over the past four years the Ivoirian crisis has seen as its central dynamic the mobilization of the categories of autochthony and territorialized belonging in an ultranationalist discourse vehicled by the party in power. More than just a struggle to the death for state power, the conflict involves the redefinition of the content of citizenship and the conditions of sovereignty. The explosion of violence and counterviolence provoked and legitimated by the mobilization of these categories does not necessarily signify either the triumph of those monolithic identities “engineered” during the colonial occupation, nor the disintegration of the nation-state in the context of globalization. The Ivoirian case shows the continued vitality of the nation-state: not only as the principal space in terms of which discourses of authochtony are constructed, but also in terms of the techniques and categories that the political practice of autochthony puts into play. While in some senses the Ivoirian conflict appears to be a war without borders—in particular with the “spillover” of the Liberian war in the west during 2003—it is above all a war about borders, crystallizing in liminal spaces and social categories and on emerging practices and ways of life.

scholarly journals Takzir as a Punishment in Islamic Criminal Law (Study of the Establishment of Punishment in Criminal Acts in Qanun)

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-108
Author(s):  
Usammah
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Social Life ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Western Law ◽  
Law Making

Formalizing the Shari'a of Islam both in the realm of social and social life, in the state and nation are not infrequently debated, both socio-political and religious debates. The debate is in addition to understanding the teachings of religion and its relationship with the nation-state, as well as understanding the existing legal system within the country, especially that the country embraces a positive legal system that is more influenced by western law. The notion of enforcement of Islamic criminal law can not necessarily be carried out properly without any legislation and the establishment of a material Islamic criminal law as a positive law in force. Also, Islamic criminal law is a public law requiring state power both in law making and in law enforcement. In relation to the legislation and the formation of the law (qanun syariat Islam), the most interesting thing is how to determine the shape of the finger and its uqubat both belonging to the category of hudud, qisas and takzir as part of the Islamic Shari'a law enforcement system

scholarly journals O PLANO, O CONTRAPLANO E O “PLANO SEM PLANO”: IMAGENS OCIDENTAIS E MBYA GUARANI DAS RUÍNAS DE SÃO MIGUEL

ILUMINURAS ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (46) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Lacerda
Keyword(s):  
Nation State ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Second Moment ◽  
Positive Images ◽  
Mbya Guarani ◽  
Ways Of Being

Resumo:O artigo analisa as inúmeras produções imagéticas sobre as Missões Jesuítico-Guarani, com especial destaque para as ruínas de São Miguel (RS). Em primeiro lugar, examino como aquelas estruturas foram construídas, inclusive através de processos patrimoniais, enquanto “plano”, isto é, como visualidade do poder colonial no sentido de fomentar imagens positivas do Estado-Nação e, atualmente, de uma sociedade multicultural. Num segundo momento, exploro a realização de filmes por Mbya Guarani sobre as Missões e a sua história e cultura enquanto “contraplano” àquela produção de imagens. Por fim, defendo que, para este povo, as categorias cinema e património encontram ressonâncias produtivas nos modos de ser e conhecer o cosmo e que, por isso, estão para além de uma “guerra de imagens”, constituindo um “plano sem plano”.Palavras-chave: Visualidade. Cinema indígena. Património. Missões Jesuítico-Guarani. Mbya Guarani THE SHOT, THE REVERSE SHOT AND THE “SHOT WITHOUT A SHOT”: OCCIDENTAL AND MBYA GUARANI IMAGES OF THE RUINS OF SÃO MIGUEL Abstract:The article analyzes the numerous imagery productions about the Jesuit-Guarani Missions, with special emphasis on the ruins of São Miguel (RS). First, I examine how these structures were constructed, namely through patrimonial processes, as a "shot", that is, as the visuality of the colonial power in order to foster positive images of the Nation-State and, today, of a multicultural society. In a second moment, I explore the films made by the Mbya Guarani about the Missions and their history and culture as a “reverse shot" to that production of images. Finally, I argue that for this people, the categories of cinema and heritage find productive resonances in the ways of being and knowing of the cosmos and that, therefore, they are beyond a "war of images", constituting a “shot without a shot”.Keywords: Visuality. Indigenous cinema. Heritage. Jesuit-Guarani Missions. Mbya Guarani

Higher-Level Constituent Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
State Level ◽  
Institutional Innovation ◽  
Rational Reconstruction ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Member States ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Revision Procedure ◽  
The Eu

This chapter makes the first step in the construction of a new theory of constituent power in the EU by proposing a conceptual framework that clarifies the relation between the EU’s constituent power and the national constituent powers. In this way, it seeks to counter the objection that the EU cannot have its own constituent power because the member states retain the Kompetenz-Kompetenz. By means of a rational reconstruction of the ordinary revision procedure, especially the convention method, the chapter argues that the EU’s rules of treaty change already contain the first beginnings of a procedural-institutional innovation that can be described as a ‘levelling up’ of constituent power. One can speak of higher-level constituent power when nation-state peoples issue an authorization for constitutional politics at the supra-state level and in this way bring about a new constituent subject to which they delegate control over particular decisions. According to this view, the EU’s constituent power is neither independent of, nor equivalent to, nor combined with the constituent powers of the member states, but rather delegated by them.

The Rise of the Regional State in Economic Governance: ‘Partnerships for Prosperity’ Or New Scales of State Power?

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 1185-1211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Jones
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
State Power ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Policy Interventions

In recent debates on the regulation and governance of contemporary capitalism and its territorial form, there is an emerging consensus that successful economic development is contingent on a movement away from the nation-state and policy interventions at the national scale toward subnational institutional frameworks and supports. In effect, both an ‘institutional turn’ and a ‘scalar turn’ appear to be occurring, through which the heterogeneity of economic growth may be explored. The author scrutinises these claims by examining what is becoming known as ‘new regionalist’ orthodoxy in economic development. This orthodoxy is particularly powerful because its concerns for resolving economic and democratic deficit by harnessing the regional scale are supported by academics, politicians, and policymakers alike. Focusing on England's Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), a radical initiative in regional economic governance, the author argues for a need to rethink the nation-state and the processes through which its intervention is being scaled. RDAs have been given a remit to enhance economic and social development, but rather than their providing decentralised ‘partnerships for prosperity’, a number of contradictions and tensions are revealed. These indicate that England's own brand of new regionalism is heavily steered by political fiat and central government dictate. To inform new regionalist debates, the author consequently argues that a new (regional) scale of state power is emerging and RDAs are forming part of a political strategy aimed at rescaling, instead of resolving, an economic and democratic deficit. The author concludes by calling for a closer engagement in political – economic geography between state theory, crisis theory, and the scaling of state power and suggests a need to formulate a fourth-cut theory of crisis.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document