THE INFLUENCE OF POPULISM ON DEMOCRACY IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Mirilias Azad ogly Agaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the impact of populism on democracy. To investigate the impact of populism on democracy, the author explores key approaches to the populism notion: political, socio-cultural and ideological. The article notes that populism studies lack a single definition and emphasizes there are negative, positive and neutral evaluations of the nature of this phenomenon. These conclusions are used for further assumptions about the impact on liberal democratic institutions. After analyzing the works on the populism of such scholars as B. Arditi, H.-G. Betz, M. Canovan, E. Laclau, K. Mudde, S. Mouffe, K. Rovira Kaltwasser, N. Urbinati, and others, the article draws conclusions about the multidimensionality of influence on liberal democracy and, in particular, about the fallacy of solely negative assessments of this impact. The author underlines the presence of both positive aspects (providing the interests of the “silent majority”, mobilizing excluded groups and integrating them into the political sphere), and negative aspects (rejection of representative democracy and parliamentarism) of populism.

scholarly journals An ethic of care? Academic administration and pandemic policy

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 632-638
Author(s):  
Stephanie A Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Administration ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Impact

This reflexive essay examines the adoption of an intentional ‘ethic of care’ by social work administrators in a large social work school located in the Pacific Northwest. An ethic of care foregrounds networks of human interdependence that collapse the public/private divide. Moreover, rooted in the political theory of recognition, a care ethic responds to crisis by attending to individuals’ uniqueness and ‘whole particularity.’ Foremost, it rejects indifference. Through the personal recollections of one academic administrator, the impact of rejecting indifference in spring term 2020 is described. The essay concludes by linking the rejection of indifference to the national political landscape.

Liberalism, Terrorism and the Politics of Fear

Politics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Sparks
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Political Health ◽  
The Impact

This article considers the impact of terror and fear on the political health of liberal democratic societies. It examines the strategic use of terror to produce a politics of fear through an exploration of current Western reactions to terrorism. The argument is developed through a presentation of a three-part map of the politics of fear constituted by the instigation of fear, the (attempted) eradication of fear and the management of fear. Central to this presentation is an analysis of the destabilising effects the introduction of terror has on civil society and government, and of the effective ways of responding to it. Running through the presentation is an analysis of the constitution of terror and fear, their relationship to each other and to the general insecurities which beset liberal democracies.

The Labour Church Movement

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Crisis Of Faith

This chapter looks more closely at the main organizational expression of the religion of socialism, namely, the Labor Church movement. Previous historians have usually explained the rise of the Labor Church as part of a transfer of religious energy to the political sphere and then explained its demise by reference to the continuing process of secularization. In contrast, it focuses on the religious self-understanding of the Labor Church. It begins by explaining the rise of the movement by reference to the immanentist theology with which so many Victorians and Edwardians responded to the crisis of faith. Thereafter, it appeals to the ideas of the movement in order to explain its appeal, structure, and activities and to suggest that the decline of the movement reflected the weaknesses of its theology as a political theory.

Political Emancipation

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-121
Author(s):  
Joan Wallach Scott
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Formal Equality ◽  
Political Emancipation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Women's Emancipation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

This chapter considers the contradictions of women's emancipation in light of the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions. It shows how the resistance to women's citizenship had less to do with the necessarily slow but inevitable progress of liberal democratic ideas than it did with a contradiction at the very heart of the political thinking that articulated them—a political thinking integral to the discourse of secularism. Liberal political theory postulated the sameness of all individuals as the key to their formal equality—abstracted from their circumstances there was no discernable difference among them, they stood as equals before the law. At the same time there were differences that were thought to refuse abstraction. These were people in a state of dependency, such as propertyless peasants, wage laborers, women, children, slaves. Therefore, they could not be counted as autonomous individuals—autonomy, after all, was at the heart of the very definition of individuality.

Pluralism and the Changing Nature of Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Labor Law ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Labor Party ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Decision Making

Placing the developments previously discussed in a wider context, Chapter 12 explores the individualization of politics and the juridification of labor law, as well as the contingent and unstable link that new representative organizations have with political decision-making forums. The chapter reviews research into the transformation of politics, including the turn away from political (democratic) institutions in general and towards a reliance on “expert” institutions, and suggests that these connected processes – the NGO-ization of worker representation and the disintegration of the party-union link – reflect the breakdown of a core premise of neocorporatism: that being a worker was congruent with being a citizen. The union could once count on the labor party to fight its corner in the political sphere because the union’s members were also members of the political community, but now the political community is no longer congruent with the “worker community” – the labor force.

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theory of Dictatorship

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
General Analysis ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reconstructs the intellectual-historical background to Carl Schmitt’s well-known analysis of the problem of dictatorship and the powers of the Reichspräsident under the Weimar Constitution. The analysis focuses both on Schmitt’s wartime propaganda work, concerning a distinction between the state of siege and dictatorship, as well as on his more general analysis of modern German liberalism. It demonstrates why Schmitt attempted to produce a critical history of the history of modern political thought with the concept of dictatorship at its heart and how he came to distinguish between commissarial and sovereign forms of dictatorship to attack liberalism and liberal democracy. The chapter also focuses on the conceptual reworking of the relationship between legitimacy and dictatorship that Schmitt produced by interweaving the political thought of the Abbé Sieyès and the French Revolution into his basic rejection of contemporary liberal and socialist forms of politics.

Deliberation and Deconstruction: Two Views on the Space of a Post-National Democracy

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
Promising Development ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

Theorists of deliberation and deconstruction each claim commitments to a more open and legitimate democracy than existing liberal democracy. Eschewing traditional foundations such as natural law, historical inheritance, or the constitutive formation of the nation, they seek to develop a theory of democracy that is more inclusive in conditions of social diversity and complexity. This article investigates the meaning of the open political space that fosters the democratic experience under such conditions. First, a sociologically informed political theory, such as Jürgen Habermas' powerful if flawed attempt, is required to conceive participation in the democratic political sphere. Drawing on Jacques Derrida and others, the author then argues that deconstructive insights that introduce an openness to the non-identical contribute to a more complete democratic theory, offering a crucial mode of democratic inclusion of the other and an acknowledgment of difference that might assist in reforming current institutions. Thus a blend of Habermasian orientation toward deliberation and deconstruction's ethical sensibilities presents a promising development of democratic possibilities.

C. B. Macpherson's Critique of Liberal Democracy and Capitalism

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Morrice
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Socialist Society ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Theory Of Human Nature ◽  
Market Relations

C. B. Macpherson's project was to revise liberal-democratic theory in the light of Marxism, to rescue the valuable part of the liberal tradition from the dangers of capitalist market relations, and to democratize socialism. I identify Macpherson's concept of political theory, which informs his project; reconstruct his criticisms of liberal democratic theory and capitalist market relations; and note his prescriptions for a better political theory and practice. The project remains significant and valuable in a world in which political and economic liberalism is said to be triumphant and socialism dead or in retreat. It is not without its problems, however, which include an inadequate theory of human nature and a lack of detail on the nature of a democratic socialist society.

scholarly journals Democracy: Between the essentially contested concept and the agonistic practice: Connolly, Mouffe, Tully

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-87
Author(s):  
Michal Sladecek
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Radical Pluralism ◽  
William Connolly ◽  
The Status ◽  
Specific Interpretation ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Essentially Contested Concept

The text considers points of view of theoreticians of the radical pluralism (democracy): Connolly (William Connolly), Mouffe (Chantal Mouffe) and Tully (James Tully) with regard to the status and the nature of concepts in the political discourse, as well as the consequences of these conceptual presumptions to understanding democracy. The three authors emphasize the essential contestability of political concepts, the paradox of liberal democracy and the need to revise standard rational consensus theories of democracy. Also, the three authors take over the specific interpretation of Vittgenstein to the direction of political theory the centre of which consists of everyday contingent practices of politics as well as dissent about their assessment. The text analyzes the extent to which this reading is compatible to Wittgenstein's position. The author defends the opinion that the essential contestability does not imply agonism and denial of the significance of rules and tries to indicate to the points of illegitimate transition from antiessentialism to unconsensus rules. Also, the text underlines the flaws of dissent conception of democracy and social integration.

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