Civic Virtue without Politics

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Liberal Democracies

This chapter discusses a new theory of civic virtue and of paying debts to society, showing that citizens can exercise civic virtue and pay debts to society not only without voting but often without engaging in politics at all. It defends the extrapolitical conception of civic virtue. According to the extrapolitical conception, political participation is not necessary for the exercise of civic virtue. Indeed, citizens can have exceptional civic virtue despite disengagement with politics. Most ways to exercise civic virtue in contemporary liberal democracies do not involve politics, or even activities on the periphery of politics, such as community-based volunteering or military service.

Sedition in Liberal Democracies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anushka Singh
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Political Speech ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Indian Experience ◽  
Judicial Discourse ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right

Liberal democracies claim to give constitutional and legal protection of varying degrees to the right to free speech of which political speech and the right to dissent are extensions. Within the right to freedom of expression, however, some category of speeches do not enjoy protection as they are believed to be ‘injurious’ to society. One such unprotected form of political speech is sedition which is criminalized for the repercussions it may have on the authority of the government and the state. The cases registered in India in recent months under the law against sedition show that the law in its wide and diverse deployment was used against agitators in a community-based pro-reservation movement, a group of university students for their alleged ‘anti-national’ statements, anti-liquor activists, to name a few. Set against its contemporary use, this book has used sedition as a lens to probe the fate of political speech in liberal democracies. The work is done in a comparative framework keeping the Indian experience as its focus, bringing in inferences from England, USA, and Australia to intervene and contribute to the debates on the concept of sedition within liberal democracies at large. On the basis of an analytical enquiry into the judicial discourse around sedition, the text of the sedition laws, their political uses, their quotidian existence, and their entanglement with the counter-terror legislations, the book theorizes upon the life of the law within liberal democracies.

Personality and Genetic Associations With Military Service

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Miles ◽  
Donald P. Haider-Markel
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Genetic Correlation ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Genetic Associations ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Significant Heritability ◽  
The Military

Existing literature connects military service to regional characteristics and family traditions, creating real distinctions between those who serve and those who do not. We engage this discussion by examining military service as a function of personality. In the second portion, we examine military service as predisposed by genetics. Our findings indicate there is a significant heritability component of serving in the military. We find a significant genetic correlation between personality traits associated with progressive political ambition and military service, suggesting that military service represents a different form of political participation to which individuals are genetically predisposed. We discuss the long-term implications of our findings for policy makers and recruiters.

7. Citizenship Theory

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Classical View ◽  
Civic Republicanism ◽  
The Family ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Civic Virtues

This chapter examines theories of citizenship as an important supplement to, rather than a replacement for, theories of justice. It first considers what sorts of virtues and practices are said to be required by democratic citizenship, focusing on two different forms of civic republicanism: a classical view which emphasizes the intrinsic value of political participation, and a liberal view which emphasizes its instrumental importance. The chapter then explains how liberal states can try to promote the appropriate forms of citizenship virtues and practices. It also discusses the seedbeds of civic virtue, taking into account a variety of aspects of liberal society that can be seen as inculcating civic virtues, including the market, civic associations, and the family. It concludes with an analysis of the politics of civic republicanism.

Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward E. Curtis IV
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Military Service ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Muslim Americans ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
The Future

The future of US democracy depends on the question of whether Muslim Americans can become full social and political citizens. Though many Muslims have worked toward full assimilation since the 1950s, it has mattered little whether they have expressed dissent or supported the political status quo. Their efforts to assimilate have been futile because the liberal terms under which they have negotiated their citizenship have simultaneously alienated Muslims from the body politic. Focusing on both electoral and grassroots Muslim political participation, this book reveals Muslim challenges to and accommodation of liberalism from the Cold War to the war on terror. It shows how the Nation of Islam both resisted and made use of postwar liberalism, and then how Malcolm X sought a political alternative in his Islamic ethics of liberation. The book charts the changing Muslim American politics of the late twentieth century, examining how Muslim Americans fashioned their political participation in response to a form of US nationalism tied to war-making against Muslims abroad. The book analyzes the everyday resistance of Muslim American women to an American identity politics that put their bodies at the center of US public life and it assesses the attempts of Muslim Americans to find acceptance through military service. It concludes with an examination of the role of Muslim American dissent in the contemporary politics of the United States.

Music workshops as a pathway to community engagement for military veterans

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-340
Author(s):  
Niyati Dhokai
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Military Veterans ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Civilian Life ◽  
Post Injury ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Arts Engagement ◽  
The Impact

For military veterans who are integrating into civilian community settings after military service, community engagement often involves the negotiation of post-injury needs, the consideration of new roles within the family and community social structures and the transition from military to civilian life. Community-based music programmes can provide opportunities to explore new social relationships with family, friends and community members and reinforce a sense of well-being as well as inform facilitators about the different learning and health needs, particularly those leading to social isolation, of veterans and their families that may affect adherence and retention during the workshop series. This article examines the impact of participating in community-based guitar workshops using ethnographic observation, surveys and interviews with veteran participants. Longitudinal ethnographic information offers valuable insight to plan long-term arts engagement as veterans and their families transition to new communities and continue to utilize the arts as a way to provide positive peer-to-peer support.

scholarly journals As Thick as Thieves: Exploring Thomas Hobbes’ Critique of Ancient Friendship and its Contemporary Relevance

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Slomp
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Political Association ◽  
Explanatory Concept

Recent decades have witnessed a revival of interest in ancient friendship both as a normative and as an explanatory concept. The literature concurs in holding Hobbes responsible for the marginalisation of friendship in political science and suggests that Hobbes devalued friendship because of his understanding of man. This article argues that although Hobbes’ appraisal of friendship hinges on his assumption that man is self-interested, his critique of normative friendship does not rest on that notion. Hobbes’ challenge to us is this: without foundation in the ‘truth’ (i.e. the ‘Good Life’) that underpinned ancient friendship, modern friendship, whether self-interested or selfless, cannot be assumed to be a civic virtue, nor an index of the health of a political association, nor a facilitator of domestic or global peace. Hobbes’ critique is especially relevant for writers who maintain that a resurgence of friendship can nurture concord and foster reconciliation within contemporary liberal democracies.

scholarly journals (Social) Media isn’t the message, networked people are: calls for protest through social media

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Lapa ◽  
Gustavo Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

In recent years, protests took the streets of cities around the world. Among the mobilizing factors were the perceptions of injustice, democratization demands, and, in the case of liberal democracies, waves of discontentment characterized by a mix of demands for better public services and changes in the discredited democratic institutions. This paper discusses social media usage in mobilization for demonstrations around the world, and how such use configures a paradigmatic example of how communication occurs in network societies. In order to frame the discussion, social media appropriation for the purposes of political participation is examined through a survey applied online in 17 countries. The ways in which social media domestication by a myriad of social actors occurred and institutional responses to demonstrations developed, it is argued that, in the network society, networked people, and no longer the media, are the message.

A Troubled Vernacular: Legibility and Presence in Indonesian Activist Art

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-322
Author(s):  
Doreen Lee
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
The State ◽  
Street Art ◽  
New Order ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Activist Art ◽  
Performance Arts ◽  
State Present

Activist art and political resistance became popular aesthetics in the work of Indonesian artists after the fall of the New Order in 1998. In subsequent years, more art alternatives have emerged in cities and small towns across Indonesia, including diverse and vernacular modes of artistry such as street art and community-based international festivals. Where artists formerly focused their energies on critiquing the state, present art initiatives have become far more diffuse, counter-establishment, and localized in their approach. Local artists started the Jogja mural movement to rebrand Yogyakarta as a city of murals, while Jatiwangi Art Factory, an arts collective founded in a semi-industrialized village in West Java, has become a haven for performance arts and community-based projects for Indonesians and foreign artists in residence. This article looks at such experiments of legibility and presence as a new means of redefining publics and broadening the domain of political participation in Indonesia.

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