John Stuart Mill on Colonies

Author(s):  
Duncan Bell

This chapter explores some important yet neglected aspects of John Stuart Mill's vision of global order. Mill has played a pivotal role in the recent wave of scholarship dedicated to unraveling the entanglement of Western political thought and imperialism. The chapter analyzes three key thematics in his colonial writings: (1) his evolving account of the political economy of colonization; (2) his views on “responsible government” and character formation; and (3) finally, his elaboration of the role played by conceptions of physical space, and of the constitutional structure of the imperial system. It also pursues two subsidiary lines of argument. First, it identifies how Mill's justificatory account of colonization shifted over time. The other line of argument focuses on how Mill framed his narrative.

Utilitas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Norris Turner

AbstractJoseph Persky's excellent book, The Political Economy of Progress: John Stuart Mill and Modern Radicalism, shows that J. S. Mill's support for socialism is a carefully considered element of his political and economic reform agenda. The key thought underlying Persky's argument is that Mill has an ‘evolutionary theory of justice’, according to which the set of institutions and practices that are appropriate to one state of society should give way to a new set of institutions as circumstances change and the people themselves improve. However, Persky does not spend a great deal of time discussing Mill's theory of reform, in particular the principles he believes should guide our reform efforts. Reflecting on these principles – notably his principle of impartiality or equal treatment – shows the consistency of Mill's thought over time.


Author(s):  
Avi Max Spiegel

This chapter seeks to understand how Islamist movements have evolved over time, and, in the process, provide important background on the political and religious contexts of the movements in question. In particular, it shows that Islamist movements coevolve. Focusing on the histories of Morocco's two main Islamist movements—the Justice and Spirituality Organization, or Al Adl wal Ihsan (Al Adl) and the Party of Justice and Development (PJD)—it suggests that their evolutions can only be fully appreciated if they are relayed in unison. These movements mirror one another depending on the competitive context, sometimes reflecting, sometimes refracting, sometimes borrowing, sometimes adapting or even reorganizing in order to keep up with the other.


2021 ◽  

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2 (22)) ◽  
pp. 106-118
Author(s):  
Gabriella Macciocca

The history of the language represents a moment of deep knowledge in the development of the political thought of the Nation. With regard to the Italian language, we must recognize observations and summaries of linguistic history produced ever since the origins of the language itself. A short number of examples, coming from the history of the Italian language, and from the history of Italian literature, will be considered. We will consider in which way the language has been taught over time and the University statement.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Boldrin ◽  
David K Levine

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. Both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent, the general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative. A properly designed patent system might serve to increase innovation at a certain time and place. Unfortunately, the political economy of government-operated patent systems indicates that such systems are susceptible to pressures that cause the ill effects of patents to grow over time. Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence that laissez-faire undersupplies it. However, if that policy change seems too large to swallow, we discuss in the conclusion a set of partial reforms that could be implemented


Other Others ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Sergey Dolgopolski

The “Introduction” formulates the question of the political, and in particular of the emergence and erasure of the political from the horizon of currently predominant political thought in political theology and political ontology. The “Introduction” further attunes the readers to the dynamic key of “effacement” as both emergence and erasure, thereby defining the main register in which the book is proceeding -- as distinct from the keys of chronological periodisation, linear history, paradigm shifts, or other stabilizing approaches. The “Introduction” further draws a distinction between politics and the political, and advances the question of the political in relation to the Talmud as both a text and a discipline of thinking able to shed a new, contrasting, light on the paradox driven modern political notions of a singularizing and even singling out notion of a “Jew,” and a universalizing notion of the “human being.” The “Introduction” concludes by gesturing towards a much closer connection between the question of the political in the Talmud, the notions of the Jews and of the human beings in modernity, and the question of earth and territory as a part of political equation these concepts spell out.


Vivarium ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 22-50
Author(s):  
Peter Adamson

AbstractGiles of Rome’s On Ecclesiastical Power (De ecclesiastica potestate), a polemical work arguing for the political supremacy of the pope, claims that the papacy holds a ‘plenitude of power’ and has direct or indirect authority over all aspects of human life. This paper shows how Giles uses themes from natural philosophy in developing his argument. He compares cosmic and human ordering and draws an analogy between the relations of soul to body and of Church to state. He also understands the pope’s power to be ‘universal’ in nature, another idea taken from Aristotelian physics. Further, Giles views the pope’s right to intervene arbitrarily in the affairs of the Christian community as mirroring God’s ability to work miracles. We thus see that Giles, no less than intellectuals on the other side of this debate such as Dante and Marsilius of Padua, believed that Aristotelian natural philosophy could be enlisted in the service of political thought.


Author(s):  
Itir Ozer-Imer ◽  
Derya Guler Aydin

In the modern period, there are two concerns regarding the nature of the market. One is associated with market structures that involve solely the economic sphere and exclude all other factors including historical, social, and institutional ones. Hence, it conducts a static analysis, while the other relates the market process with all the aforementioned factors in addition to the economic ones, and therefore, combines economic and non-economic spheres, and the analysis becomes dynamic. This chapter scrutinizes the conceptualization of the market; that is whether the market is considered as a “structure” or a “process”. With this consideration, authors relate the conceptualization of the market with the type of competition. When the market is regarded as a “process”, it is possible to claim that market becomes an “institution”. Thus, by taking the market as an institution and considering competition within a dynamic framework, the emergent economic theoretical structure provides an in-depth, comprehensive, analytical, and novel approach to real economic and social concerns.


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