scholarly journals Reason and Political Economy in Hume

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik W. Matson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Economic Liberty ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
The Status

This paper examines some connections between Hume’s epistemology in his Treatise of Human Nature and his political economy. I make three claims: (1) First, I argue that it is the development of Hume’s account of the faculty of reason in Book I of the Treatise that leads him to emphasize social science—including political economy—and the humanities over more abstract modes of intellectual inquiry. (2) Second, I argue that Hume’s conception of reason has implications for his methodology in political economy. His perception of human reason leads him to deploy a method of qualified generalization that emphasizes the by-and-large nature of theoretical statements. (3) Third, when it comes to policy matters, the method of qualified generalization in theory cashes out in terms of practical maxims. I suggest that two central maxims in Hume’s political economy derive from his views of the usefulness of economic liberty and the coordinating nature of the status quo.

The violence of ideology

2018 ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Anthony Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
The Status ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
As If

This chapter asks a simple question – if we know the problematic nature of capitalism and its attendant harms and inequalities, why can’t we fix it? The answer lies in an account of ideology which lies in action, not thought – we know there are problems but act as if we do not. The disavowal of problematic working conditions – and other significant issues such as environmental harm, migration and automation – makes it difficult to challenge the status quo and enact meaningful change. The search for human recognition and flourishing is hampered by the progressive search for change within the existing system rather than contemplating a different set of social relations and structures. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for ‘fixing the harms of work’ which centre around the need for social science to reconnect with analysis of political economy and problematise capitalism in a way that demands consideration of alternatives.

Performing Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah C. M. Bulloch
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Local Government ◽  
International Development ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Parallel Structures ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economy Of Development ◽  
Development Initiatives

This chapter focuses on development as a “civic project.” It explores local symbols of orchestrated community-wide development, including infrastructure, ceremony and signage. The chapter argues that a defining feature of such symbols is a concern with development as a performative display. Tied as they are to clientelist politics, local government-led development initiatives are largely about “branding” both projects and people in their patron’s name, (re)producing webs of utang kabubut-on(debt of obligation), intended to reinforce the status quo. Entangled in this local political economy of development, are international bilateral and multilateral agencies, equipped with the latest international development orthodoxy and a remit to work in “partnership” with the local government. The incommensurability of these approaches is revealed when “partnership” morphs into a system of largely separate and parallel structures for implementing local development.

Coloniality in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurgen Poesche
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sub Saharan

The objective of this article is to contribute to the development of a common narrative on coloniality in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. Since scholars tend to focus on either Sub-Saharan Africa or the Americas, a gap between these important regions has emerged in the literature on coloniality. This article seeks to bridge this gap by providing a comparative perspective on coloniality, and this hopefully will enhance Indigenous African nations’ and Indigenous American nations’ understanding of what needs to be done to overcome coloniality. The article explores three key theses. First, in spite of the differences in the extant societal power structures in the postcolonial African states and the former settler colonial states in the Americas, this article argues that the continued dynamics of coloniality are similar in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. The minority status of Indigenous American nations throughout the Americas renders addressing coloniality more challenging than in Sub-Saharan Africa where Indigenous African nations are in the majority although they generally do not have effective sovereignty. Second, the extant societal power structures associated with both coloniality and occidental modernity have weaponized occidental jurisprudence, natural science and social science to defend and proliferate the status quo assisted by state sovereignty. Addressing coloniality effectively therefore requires a renaissance of Indigenous African and Indigenous American cosmovisions unaffected by modernity. Third, addressing coloniality in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas requires the recognition of the comprehensive and supreme sovereignty of the Indigenous African nations in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Indigenous American nations in all of the Americas.

scholarly journals More than a sex crime: a feminist political economy of the 2014 iCloud hack

2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110227
Author(s):  
Stephanie Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Media Production ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Media ◽  
Feminist Work

This article examines the media framing of and relations to the 2014 iCloud hack, wherein hundreds of female celebrities’ private photos were stolen and distributed online. In particular, I problematize the reading of this event as merely signalling the misogyny of ‘toxic’ online cultures and contextualize it as part of a larger political economy of female celebrity. I argue that, while the growth in feminist discourses emanating from both the mainstream media and celebrity women is encouraging, it perhaps occludes the broader power relations that extend across both new and traditional media, ensuring maintenance of the status quo. This event exemplifies problems with a popular form of feminism that seeks inclusion into these systems, rather than wider systemic change. Therefore, in addition to examining the celebrity and/or her audience as the site of political (feminist) work, I call for an excavation of the systems in which she is embedded and her relations to the means of media production and profit.

The Political Economy of Localism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ali
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Critical Regionalism ◽  
Local Media ◽  
The Status ◽  
Policy Windows ◽  
Definition Of

In Chapter 6, the case studies are analyzed through the frameworks of critical regionalism and critical political economy. The first section describes how a political economy of localism has come to exist within media policy discourse. This system favors the status quo over alternatives, tethers local media exclusively to specific places, and impedes our ability to think through ways to bridge the spatial and social divides of localism. The second section reintroduces critical regionalism as an approach that tempers this political economy. The chapter argues that while the political economy of localism works to stifle policy alternatives, there are policy windows – “moments of critical regionalism” – that require our attention. The chapter offers a definition of media localism based on critical regionalism and the case studies.

scholarly journals What’s the Problem with Learning Analytics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Selwyn
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
The Status

This article summarizes some emerging concerns as learning analytics become implemented throughout education. The article takes a sociotechnical perspective — positioning learning analytics as shaped by a range of social, cultural, political, and economic factors. In this manner, various concerns are outlined regarding the propensity of learning analytics to entrench and deepen the status quo, disempower and disenfranchise vulnerable groups, and further subjugate public education to the profit-led machinations of the burgeoning “data economy.” In light of these charges, the article briefly considers some possible areas of change. These include the design of analytics applications that are more open and accessible, that offer genuine control and oversight to users, and that better reflect students’ lived reality. The article also considers ways of rethinking the political economy of the learning analytics industry. Above all, learning analytics researchers need to begin talking more openly about the values and politics of data-driven analytics technologies as they are implemented along mass lines throughout school and university contexts.

scholarly journals Stuck with the car and all its harms? A public health approach to the political economy of the status quo

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Macmillan ◽  
Katharine Cresswell Riol ◽  
Kirsty Wild
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Mode Shift ◽  
Adequate Knowledge ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
The Status

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scholarly journals The political economy of health financing reform in Malaysia

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 732-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Croke ◽  
Mariana Binti Mohd Yusoff ◽  
Zalilah Abdullah ◽  
Ainul Nadziha Mohd Hanafiah ◽  
Khairiah Mokhtaruddin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
The Status

Abstract There is growing evidence that political economy factors are central to whether or not proposed health financing reforms are adopted, but there is little consensus about which political and institutional factors determine the fate of reform proposals. One set of scholars see the relative strength of interest groups in favour of and opposed to reform as the determining factor. An alternative literature identifies aspects of a country’s political institutions–specifically the number and strength of formal ‘veto gates’ in the political decision-making process—as a key predictor of reform’s prospects. A third group of scholars highlight path dependence and ‘policy feedback’ effects, stressing that the sequence in which health policies are implemented determines the set of feasible reform paths, since successive policy regimes bring into existence patterns of public opinion and interest group mobilization which can lock in the status quo. We examine these theories in the context of Malaysia, a successful health system which has experienced several instances of proposed, but ultimately blocked, health financing reforms. We argue that policy feedback effects on public opinion were the most important factor inhibiting changes to Malaysia’s health financing system. Interest group opposition was a closely related factor; this opposition was particularly powerful because political leaders perceived that it had strong public support. Institutional veto gates, by contrast, played a minimal role in preventing health financing reform in Malaysia. Malaysia’s dramatic early success at achieving near-universal access to public sector healthcare at low cost created public opinion resistant to any change which could threaten the status quo. We conclude by analysing the implications of these dynamics for future attempts at health financing reform in Malaysia.

The Political Economy of the Emergency Looking for Ideology

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-96
Author(s):  
Christophe Jaffrelot ◽  
Pratinav Anil
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
The Status

The chapter presents a balance sheet of the political economy during the Emergency. It focuses on the divergence between the socialist rhetoric of Mrs Gandhi’s Twenty-Point Programme and her dirigiste corporatism in practice. It also denotes the complementarity of authoritarianism and populism, as populism has no ideology either. This depoliticization, which is described as a major characteristic of authoritarian regimes by Linz, helped to bridge the class divide in order to maintain the status quo. This was followed by policies to allow some redistribution, such as land reforms and by keeping essential commodities affordable to prevent mass protests. However, the chapter concludes that the little progress that was made due to redistribution policies was offset by the class war, with the elites eventually maintaining the status quo.

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