scholarly journals A critical analysis of anarchist critiques of the Field of “Solidarity and Cooperative Economy” in Greece

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaggelis Gkagkelis
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Self Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
Solidarity Economy ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Ultimate Objective ◽  
Structural Connection ◽  
Objective Being ◽  
Cooperative Economy

Abstract In this article, we explore the critiques developed by the anarchist social movement towards the “Solidarity and Cooperative Economy” in Greece. Initially, we outline the genealogy of the structural connection governing the “solidarity” economy with the development of contemporary social movements worldwide. Then, through the indexing of anarchist publications, we proceed to focus on two main anarchist critiques emphasizing on the economic and political problems of a “solidarity” economy which, in turn lead to the construction of the political position that refutes the interrelation of social movements with the field of alternative economy. We also outline the economic and political theory of classic anarchist thinkers: Kropotkin, Proudhon and Bakunin and we reappraise the critiques of the contemporary Greek anarchist movement based on these thinkers. Ultimately, the paper seeks to detect the points of convergence between the “Solidarity and Cooperative Economy” and contemporary anarchist movement. Deeming the practice of self-management as the principal interface between the anarchist thought and the organisation of networks and communities that constitute the “Solidarity and Cooperative Economy”, the present article calls for reflection and re-evaluation of these critiques with the ultimate objective being the delineation of new areas of political antagonism with capitalist structures and social change.

Commentary: Necromance

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-839
Author(s):  
Irvin J Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Romantic Novel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Cooperative Economy ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract This article reconsiders the recent turn in political theory to love as a countercapital affect, helping us endure when hope has lost its salience. The article offers the concept of “necromance” to attend to the ways the popular configuration of love as life-giving often overlooks how in the history of slavery and liberal empire love operates as life-taking. Distinct from necromancy, necromance is not a process of reviving the dead but of bringing subjects in ever closer proximity to the dead. Grounded in a reading of W. E. B. Du Bois’s romantic novel The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911), particularly its vision of a cooperative economy and its response to the evolving meaning of love in American culture at the end of the nineteenth century, necromance is both a structure of feeling and a form of writing. As a resource for activism indebted to the creative powers of melancholic attachments, necromance contests the common conception that in order for grievances to become social movements or collective insurgencies they must be framed to create feelings of outrage, not of grief. By working inside existing conditions of irrevocable loss, necromantic love registers the feeling that the revolution is already here.

Contingency and responsibility in Confucian political theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 615-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Common

In this article I investigate the Confucian sense of responsibility from the framework of “moral economy,” understood as a causal relationship between one’s virtue and non-moral goods including political position/success, and “contingency,” the failure of moral economy, and argue that early Confucians’ astute understanding of the contingent nature of the political world enabled them to subscribe to the non-causal sense of responsibility. Contrary to the common argument that Heaven was invoked by the Confucians in order to shield themselves from responsibility for their political failures, I argue that they imposed a more expanded sense of responsibility both on them and on the rulers, largely preoccupied with realpolitik. In their effort to restore moral economy between the ruler’s virtue and his political position in particular, I show Confucians engaged in what I call reverse moral economy, at the heart of which was to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of political power.

Being a Zapatista wherever you are: reflections on academic-activist practice from Latin America to the UK

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Chatterton
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Solidarity Economy ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
The Uk

This chapter reflects on the experiences of undertaking solidarity work with the Zapatista social movement in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, and what this means for building the solidarity economy. It focuses on six themes: education that challenges neoliberalism, developing resources with social movements, a commitment to participatory organising, building infrastructure for self-management, taking a strategic approach, and taking risks. The paper stresses that ‘being a Zapatista wherever you are’ is a rocky road which opens up openings and possibilities. It is a long journey with no clear endpoint that requires patience, openness, strength and compassion, but it is one that the author encourages the readers to embark upon joyfully with others.

scholarly journals Reinvestigating the Political Position of the Citizen in Plato’s „Republic”

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Stephen Oppong Peprah
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Cooperative Interaction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Orthodox Interpretation ◽  
Political Position ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Ideal

In this paper, I argue that in the Republic Plato justifies the political authority of the guardians in light of the principle of partnership — a principle which fits coherently with other Platonic principles which undergird his political theory, including optimum functionality, social justice and power. Therefore, I argue that, by their respective professions, there is a cooperative interaction between the guardians and the producers as partners within the political structure of the ideal polis towards attaining the eudaemonistic goals of both the individual and the polis. I contrast this with the orthodox interpretation that Plato justifies political authority using the idea of the Good — an interpretation which holds that since the citizens cannot grasp the Good, they assume an insignificant political position, including the allegations that they are cogs, slaves, morally obtuse, and politically inept.

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.

Other People's Struggles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Owen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
British History ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Do So

Other People’s Struggles is the first attempt in over forty years to explain the place of “conscience constituents” in social movements. Conscience constituents are people who participate in a movement but do not stand to benefit if it succeeds. Why do such people participate when they do not stand to benefit? Why are they sometimes present and sometimes absent in social movements? Why and when is their participation welcome to those who do stand to benefit, and why and when is it not? The work proposes an original theory to answer these questions, crossing discipline boundaries to draw on the findings of social psychology, philosophy, and normative political theory, in search of explanations of why people act altruistically and what it means to others when they do so. The theory is illustrated by examples from British history, including the antislavery movement, the women’s suffrage and liberation movements, labor and socialist movements, anticolonial movements, antipoverty movements, and movements for global justice. Other People’s Struggles also contributes to new debates concerning the rights and wrongs of “speaking for others.” Debates concerning the limits of solidarity—who can be an “ally” and on what terms—have become very topical in contemporary politics, especially in identity politics and in the new “populist” movements. The book provides a theoretical and empirical account of how these questions have been addressed in the past and how they might be framed today.

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.

The Political Theory of Data: Institutions, Algorithms, & Formats in Racial Redlining

2021 ◽  
pp. 009059172110278
Author(s):  
Colin Koopman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Know How ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Emergent Literature

Despite widespread recognition of an emergent politics of data in our midst, we strikingly lack a political theory of data. We readily acknowledge the presence of data across our political lives, but we often do not know how to conceptualize the politics of all those data points—the forms of power they constitute and the kinds of political subjects they implicate. Recent work in numerous academic disciplines is evidence of the first steps toward a political theory of data. This article maps some limits of this emergent literature with an eye to enriching its theoretical range. The literature on data politics, both within political theory and elsewhere, has thus far focused almost exclusively on the algorithm. This article locates a further dimension of data politics in the work of formatting technology or, more simply, formats. Formats are simultaneously conceptual and technical in the ways they define what can even count as data, and by extension who can count as data and how they can count. A focus on formats is of theoretical value because it provides a bridge between work on the conceptual contours of categories and the technology-centric literature on algorithms that tends to ignore the more conceptual dimensions of data technology. The political insight enabled by format theory is shown in the context of an extended interrogation of the politics of racialized redlining.

Populism From Below and Social Movements: A Case of Zimbabwe’s #ThisFlag Movement

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110345
Author(s):  
Theophilus Tinashe Nenjerama ◽  
Shepherd Mpofu
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Analyse Data

This study examines a new wave of populisms arising in the digital era using Pastor Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag movement: What are they, and how do they express themselves? How does the hegemony react to them? Non-mainstream, digitally born movements, especially in dictatorships, are dismissed by the political elite as ill-mannered disruptors whose political interventions are detrimental. To analyse the cleric’s populism and its meaning to the Zimbabwean body politic, we use three specific themes: (a) personality and influence of movement leader(s); (b) populist communication and messaging; and (c) recreating an involved citizenry. We used digital ethnography to gather and analyse data.

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