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.

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 Hanna Arendt y la Crítica de la Facultad de Juzgar

2018 ◽  
pp. 105-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana María López
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Reflective Judgment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Sensus Communis

El núcleo central de este trabajo consiste en presentar a la Crítica de la Facultad de Juzgar de Kant como un recurso significativo en la formación del pensamiento político de Hanna Arendt. Según la interpretación que la autora realiza del juicio reflexivo y su vinculación con la comunidad ampliada presente en la concepción kantiana de sensus communis, es posible considerar una redefinición del juicio ahora más ligada a la contingencia de la acción y a la pluralidad de los espectadores en el ámbito de la esfera política. En síntesis, se trata de señalar los aspectos más problemáticos de la localización del legado de Kant en los últimos trabajos de Arendt a la vez que llamar la atención sobre la cuestión concerniente a la importancia del aporte kantiano a los ejes centrales del debate de la teoría política contemporánea. AbstractThe core of this paper consists of presenting Kant's Critique of the Faculty of Judgment as a significant resource in the formation of Hanna Arendt's political thought. According to Arendt's interpretation of reflective judgment and its relation to the enlarged community that is present in the kantian conception of sensus communis, a redefinition of judgment, now closer to the contingency of action and the plurality of spectators in the realm of the political sphere is possible to consider. In short, the aim is to point out the most problematic aspects of tracing Kant's legacy in Arendt's latter works as well as to draw attention to the question concerning the importance of the kantian contribution to the key points of the discussion of contemporary political theory.

scholarly journals Mind the Gap! On the Discursive Construction of Collective Political Identities

2021 ◽  
Vol 06 (02) ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Sebastian Moreno Barreneche
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
General Mapping ◽  
Semiotic Perspective

This article explores, from a theoretical perspective, the dynamics underlying the discursive construction of collective identities within the political domain. Specifically, it: (1) presents a general mapping of political sphere studies carried out from a semiotic perspective; (2) attempts to bridge different paradigms within the semiotic tradition; and (3) establishes a dialogue between political theory and semiotics through the analysis of certain ideas belonging to the former whose semiotic nature has not yet been adequately examined, even if they are of a discursive nature. The article pays particular attention to the role that the ‘political gap’ – i.e., the space of indetermination between the various collective political identities that compete against each other in the ‘contest over meaning’ of politics – plays in the discursive construction of those identities. Arguing from a constructivist premise, establishing relational differences is a constitutive feature of the meaning-making, dynamic, and gaps between collective identities, a necessary precondition for their discursive emergence and the political sphere’s existence.

The Rhetoric of Sincerity: Cicero and Smith on Propriety and Political Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 110 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL J. KAPUST ◽  
MICHELLE A. SCHWARZE
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Collective Judgment ◽  
Rhetorical Appeals ◽  
Context Shape

The study of rhetoric has recently undergone a revival in political theory as a response to deliberative democratic approaches that value reason over affect in the political sphere. Most rhetorical revivalists look to Aristotle and develop accounts of ethos (character) that privilege the epistemic dimensions of trust, while overlooking the importance that considerations of propriety play in shaping the political speech of democratic leaders. We reconsider the rhetorical approach by integrating the regulative standards suggested by two political thinkers who also were theorists of rhetoric: Cicero and Adam Smith. Committed to character's role in collective judgment, Cicero and Smith both hold that sincerity and context shape decorum or propriety: Leaders rely on decorum to shape their rhetorical appeals, and audiences look to the fit between speech and character to gauge moral trustworthiness. Smith, however, goes beyond Cicero to develop a rhetorical theory more relevant for democracies by highlighting the importance of political context for rhetorical appeals and evaluations. We conclude by suggesting that attention to these components of decorum moves beyond Aristotelian accounts of rhetorical character in a way that is consistent with much empirical research on how voters judge the character of elected officials.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Brill
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Character

Aristotle on the Concept of Shared Life studies Aristotle’s understanding of the political character of human intimacy via an examination of the zoological frame informing his political theory. It argues that the concept of shared life, i.e. the forms of intimacy that arise from the possession of logos and the capacity for choice, is central to human political partnership, and serves to locate that life within the broader context of living beings as such, where it emerges as an intensification of animal sociality. As such it challenges a long-standing approach to the role of the animal in Aristotle’s thought, and to the recent reception of Aristotle’s thinking about the political valence of life and living beings.

Democracy in the Plural?

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-35
Author(s):  
Anna Friberg
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Concepts Of Democracy ◽  
Positive Concept

The article explores some of the composite concepts of democracy that were used in Sweden, primarily by the Social Democrats during the interwar years. Should these be seen as pluralizations of the collective singular democracy or as something qualitatively new? By showing how these concepts relate to each other and to democracy as a whole, the article argues that they should be considered statements about democracy as one entity, that democracy did not only concern the political sphere, but was generally important throughout the whole of society. The article also examines the Swedish parliamentarians' attitudes toward democracy after the realization of universal suffrage, and argues that democracy was eventually perceived as such a positive concept that opponents of what was labeled democratic reforms had to reformulate the political issues into different words in order to avoid coming across as undemocratic.

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