Communal Democracy: The Social Contract and Confederalism in Rojava

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Knapp ◽  
Joost Jongerden
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
Active Participant ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Idea

The article engages with the question of self-governance and its implications for the concept of citizenship in Rojava. A short overview of the historical development of the political idea of democratic autonomy applied in Rojava is given, a model that claims to be on the way to creating a stateless model of radical democracy whose realisation involves forms of emancipation of the citizen, from a subject of a state to an active participant. The social contract and the structure of self-governance in Rojava is examined from this perspective, and the conclusion drawn that citizenship, which has been seized by the statist model, is currently being reclaimed by the people in Rojava through democratic autonomy. The process of change of citizenship is being effected through participative action and self-education as acts of citizenship and aims to separate the idea of government from the idea of the state.

‘Birds of the Same Feather,' Shattered Hopes

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Obediah Dodo
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Election Manifesto ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Military

The study sought to understand the expectations of the people of Zimbabwe after the 2017 coup, especially in view of prevailing situation where the economy is down and the political environment is depressing. The study is motivated by the promises made and the hopes that subsequently developed in the minds of the masses during the period of the coup. The study anchors on good governance; a social contract between the people and the regime. The study is a product of a desk analysis conducted qualitatively. The study established that it may be too early to condemn the social contract though there are already signs of a failed delivery of the services as per the people's expectations. It is becoming apparent that like any other election manifesto, the messages by the coup sponsors might have been baits for the support of the masses in the power takeover project by the military.

scholarly journals Vontade geral, soberania e liberdade política em Rousseau: algumas problematizações

Problemata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 255-271
Author(s):  
Eduarda Santos Silva
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Will ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

Given the union of individuals by a convention, as idealized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The social contract, the political body that is formed will be directed by the general will, which gives unity to the people, considering the person of each associate, their assets and their freedom. Although the general will is the foundation for the maintenance of citizens' political freedom, it is possible to ask whether it will really prevail in all spheres of civil society, if the individuals who deliberate in the exercise of sovereignty are sufficiently informed about what is good common, or if they are led to accept what suits the Legislator, that is, if the general will is not manipulated, corrupted or deceived by this extraordinary figure, considered a guide endowed with superior intelligence to better lead citizens to pass good laws and preserving the common good. We are interested, then, in contrasting the very important issue of the popular participation of individuals in public subjects, highlighted by Rousseau, with the apparent limits that such participation would encounter in a republican state, and its consequences for political freedom.

scholarly journals Contracting a Radical Democracy in the Balkans - The Return of the People as a Possibility for a Leftist Inauguration of Politics

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Artan Sadiku
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Event ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will

My aim is to strengthen the argument against the dereliction of the notion of democracy – as it has resulted in the Balkans and elsewhere and to provide a thesis that a radical political change in the Balkans requires the occurrence of a political event by which a new social contract can establish itself as a genuine expression of the will of the people, or more precisely a new mode of state as a result of a new balance of class antagonisms. Reaffirming the notion of the people against its political correlative – the citizen, I aim to prove that the ‘return of the people’ – as concept is crucial for the radicalization of the concept of democracy which enables the leftist politics to be inaugurated into the political proper. Author(s): Artan Sadiku Title (English): Contracting a Radical Democracy in the Balkans - The Return of the People as a Possibility for a Leftist Inauguration of Politics Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Summer 2015) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje  Page Range: 67-88 Page Count: 13 Citation (English): Artan Sadiku, “Contracting a Radical Democracy in the Balkans - The Return of the People as a Possibility for a Leftist Inauguration of Politics,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Summer 2015): 67-88.

scholarly journals Engaging for Puerto Rico: #RickyRenuncia (and #RickySeQueda) during El Verano del 19 and digital identities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo T Perez-Rivera ◽  
Christopher Torres Lugo ◽  
Alexis R Santos-Lozada
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Puerto Rican Diaspora

Between July 13-24, 2019 the people of Puerto Rico took the streets after a series of corruption scandals shocked the political establishment. The social uprising resulted in the ousting of the Governor of Puerto Rico (Dr. Ricardo Rosselló, Ricky), the resignation of the majority of his staff something unprecedented in the history of Puerto Rico; this period has been called El Verano del 19 (Summer of 19). Social media played a crucial role in both the organization and dissemination of the protests, marches, and other activities that occurred within this period. Puerto Ricans in the island and around the world engaged in this social movement through the digital revolution mainly under the hashtag #RickyRenuncia (Ricky Resign), with a small counter movement under the hashtag #RickySeQueda (Ricky will stay). The purpose of this study is to illustrate the magnitude and grass roots nature of the political movement’s social media presence, as well as their characteristics of the population of both movements and their structures. We found that #RickyRenuncia was used approximately one million times in the period of analysis while #RickySeQueda barely reached 6,000 tweets. Particularly, the pervasiveness of cliques in the #RickySeQueda show concentrations of authority dedicated to its propagation, whilst the #RickyRenuncia propagation was much more distributed and decentralized with little to no interaction between significant nodes of authority. Noteworthy was the role of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States of America and around the world, contributing close to 40% of all geo-located tweets. Finally, we found that the Twitter followers of the former governor had indicators of being composed of two distinct populations: 1) those active in social media and 2) those who follow the account but who are not active participants of the social network. We discuss the implications of these findings on the interpretation of emergence, structure and dissemination of social activism and countermovement to these activities in the context of Puerto Rico.

scholarly journals The Application of the Constitutional Convention in Malaysia

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Nazri Muslim ◽  
Osman Md Rasip ◽  
Khairul Hamimah Mohammad Jodi ◽  
Abdullah Ibrahim ◽  
Otong Rosadi
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
The Social

In Malaysia, there is no one institution that can outdo the supremacy of the Federal Constitution. Even the three government bodies that refer to the power separation doctrine which is the legislative, judiciary and executive bodies even the Yang di-Pertuan Agong are under this Federal Constitution. The constitution can be divided into two, written and non-written constitution. The written constitution is the form of constitution that is gathered and arranged in one document. The non-written counterpart encompasses all of the constitutional principles not compiled in one document such as the law endorsed by the Parliament and the verdicts of the court such as in the United Kingdom. Other than the constitution, there are certain practices that are thought to be part of the principles of the constitution. This is known as the Constitutional Convention or the customary practice of the Constitution. Constitutional convention is a non-legislative practice and it is similar to the political ethics and not enforced in court. Although it seems trivial, it is important for this practice to be complied with, otherwise it is difficult for the constitution to work successfully as the constitutional convention cannot be brought to court and forced to be obeyed. Thus, the discussion of this article rests on the constitutional convention in terms of the social contract, the appointment of the Prime Minister, the appointment of the country’s main positions and collective responsibility.

scholarly journals The Political Impact of the Festival - Biblical Statements

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-339
Author(s):  
Georg Braulik
Keyword(s):  
Political Activism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Acts 2

Liturgy possesses a socio-critical potential which greatly surpasses political activism. It bypasses the systems of a "complex society", such as socialisation, communication and economics, through its factual logic which stands independent of faith. This political fo-rce is already developed by the feast on Sinai, to which Israel is lead out of Egypt (Ex 5:1-3). There, Israel receives the Torah, in order that its life as the people or community of Yahweh may be successful in the Promised Land. The community is to renew itself on occasion of the three pilgrimage festivals. For this purpose, Deuteronomy developed two basic types of popular liturgy within the scope of its theology of the people of God. The first is constituted by the passion commemoration of the passover (Dt 16:1-8). It aims at the social liberation of everyone in Israel, in commemorating their being lead out of Egyptian slavery. The second type is presented in the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles (16:9-12, 13-15). They initiate a fraternal society devoid of poverty, and already realise this in a realistic-symbolic way, through the communal meal of rejoicing in which all are to participate before Yahweh. According to this model, the eucharistic celebrative joy of the first Jerusalem congregation (Acts 2:44-46) reveals its community-changing force in the fact that "no poor were to be found any more" among the believers (Dt 15:4 in Acts 4:32-34).

August Winnig: From Proletariat to Workerdom, in the Name of the People

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-152
Author(s):  
Sabine Hake
Keyword(s):  
Close Connection ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Nazi Ideology ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conservative Revolution ◽  
Political Emotions

Abstract In the social imaginaries that sustained Nazi ideology from the 1920s through the 1930s, Arbeitertum, translated here as “workerdom,” played a key role in integrating socialist positions into the discourse of the Volksgemeinschaft. Workerdom proved essential for translating the class-based identifications associated with the proletariat into the race-based categories that redefined the people, and hence the workers, in line with antisemitic thought. The writings of the prolific but largely forgotten August Winnig (1878–1956) can be used to reconstruct how workerdom came to provide an emotional blueprint, an identificatory model, and a compensatory fantasy in the reimagining of class, folk, and nation. The influential Vom Proletariat zum Arbeitertum (1930), as well as select autobiographical and fictional works by Winnig, are used to uncover these continuities through the political emotions, dispositions, and identifications that can properly be called populist. In the larger context of worker’s literature, conservative revolution, and völkisch thought, the Nazi discourse of workerdom not only confirms the close connection between political emotion and populist (un)reason but also opens up new ways to understand the continued attractions of populism as a particular kind of politics of emotion based on the dream of the people.

Habermas and the New Populisms

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik P. Bang
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Identification ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ground System ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Relations Of Power

Habermas is widely criticized for adumbrating an essentialist, deliberative, and consensual approach to democracy that neglects the significance and importance of contingency, conflict, and emotions in the struggle for hegemony and collective identification. However, his conception of system and lifeworld raise the claim that no society could exist without providing for a minimal degree of political cooperation between professional actors in the political system and spontaneously acting laypeople in the social lifeworld. Contingency, conflict, and emotions are obviously at play in this political conception of how to ground system and lifeworld in mutual relations of power, knowledge, trust, and respect. The goal is not to reach a stable consensus or succumb to conflict and chaos but to avoid that system becomes uncoupled from lifeworld, thus undermining the reciprocal connection between political authorities and laypeople required to make and implement authoritative decisions which are ‘for', ‘of', ‘with', and ‘by' ‘the people'.

The Concept of the Legislator in Rousseau's Social Contract

1970 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-196
Author(s):  
Harvey F. Fireside
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Motive Force ◽  
The Political ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Human Element ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Good Order

Rousseau's injection of the human element onto the austere scene of politics drawn in Du Contrat Social comes as a surprise. This element, personified by the legislator in Chapter 7 of Book II, serves two purposes. It dramatizes the political forces in Rousseau's scheme for not the most perfect, but perhaps the best attainable, regime. As the contemporary condition of civic slavery called for radical reform, that is, a regeneration, man must reassure himself that the birth of a good order is possible by delving back to the foundation of government. In doing so man might also learn something about how and why it takes place. The second reason for introducing the legislator relates to the vital threefold functions he performs as the eyes, brain and motive force of the people.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document