Between the Social and the Political

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pia Rowe ◽  
David Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conventional Theory ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Action Language

While Wood and Flinders’ work to broaden the scope of what counts as “politics” in political science is a needed adjustment to conventional theory, it skirts an important relationship between society, the protopolitical sphere, and arena politics. We contend, in particular, that the language of everyday people articulates tensions in society, that such tensions are particularly observable online, and that this language can constitute the beginning of political action. Language can be protopolitical and should, therefore, be included in the authors’ revised theory of what counts as political participation.

Women in Power and Decision making Positions : Conditions and Restraints

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Slow Progress

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!

Doing politics by other means: Abdelmalek Sayad and the political sociology of a collective intellectual

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 999-1014
Author(s):  
Amín Pérez
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Intellectual Work ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Fields ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The One

This article proposes a new understanding of the constraints and opportunities that lead intellectuals engaged in different political and social fields to create alternative modes of resistance to domination. The study of the Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad offers insights into the social conditions of this mode of committed scholarship. On the one hand, this article applies Sayad’s theory of immigration to his transnational intellectual engagements. It establishes how immigrants’ intellectual work are conditioned by their trajectories, both before and after leaving their country, and by the stages of emigration (from playing a role in the society of origin to becoming caught up in the reality of the host society). On the other hand, the article illuminates the constraints and the spaces of possible action intellectuals face while moving across national universes and disparate political and academic fields. Sayad’s marginal position within the academy constrained him to work for the French and Algerian governments and international organizations while he was simultaneously engaged with political dissidents, unionists, writers, and social movements. In tracking Sayad’s roles as an academic, expert and public sociologist, the article uncovers the conditions that grounded improbable alliances between those fields and produced new forms of critique and political action. The article concludes by drawing out some reflections that ‘collective intellectual’ engagements elicit to the sociology of intellectuals.

scholarly journals Racionalización y poder La cuestión de la legitimidad en Weber como referente de la acción política

2017 ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Nicolás Fleet
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legitimacy Theory ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Political Actions

ResumenEste artículo desarrolla, en tres pasos, una perspectiva original de la teoría de la dominación de Max Weber. El primer paso establece un vínculo necesario entre las formas típicas de dominación política y los intereses sociales, de modo que toda acción política debe legitimarse ante el interés general. El segundo paso explica las crisis de legitimación como una respuesta a cambios de identidad en la base social de la dominación política, de tal forma que se introduce un concepto dinámico de legitimidad. El tercer paso establece que los valores que habitan en las formas legitimas de dominación política son usados como orientaciones simbólicas por parte de intereses sociales y acciones políticas particulares, de manera que toda forma de legitimación de la autoridad encierra, en sus propias premisas, los argumentos que justifican luchas políticas hacia la modificación de los esquemas de dominación.Palabras clave: legitimidad, dominación, acción política, democratización.Abstract This article develops, in three steps, an orignal perspective of Weber’s legitimacy theory. The first one, establishes a necessary link that exists between the typical forms of legitimate domination and the social interests, in such a way that every political action that purse the realization of its interests has to legitimate itself before the general will. The second explains the legitimation crises as a response to indentity changes at the social base of the political domination and, in so doing, it introduces a dinamic concept of legitimacy. The third step states that the values that dwell in legitimate forms of political domination are used as symbolic orientations by particular social intersts and political actions, in a way that each form of authority legitimation encapsulate, in its own premises, the arguments that justify political struggles aiming toward the modification of the domination schemes.Key words: legitimacy, domination, political action, democratization.

scholarly journals Fundamentos constitucionais da proteção social: continuidades e ruturas

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Rita Ferreira ◽  
Daniel Carolo ◽  
Mariana Trigo Pereira ◽  
Pedro Adão e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
The Right

This article discusses the ways in which the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic has embodied to the political choices made during the process of creating and defining a democratic welfare state and how the various constitutional principles are reflected in the architecture of the system and have gradually changed over the years. The authors argue that when Portugal transitioned to democracy, unlike other areas of the country’s social policies the social security system retained some of its earlier organising principles. Having said this, this resilience on the part of the Portuguese system’s Bismarckian template has not prevented social protection from expanding here in accordance with universal principles, and has given successive governments manoeuvring room in which to define programmatically distinct policies and implement differentiated reformist strategies. The paper concludes by arguing that while the Constitution has not placed an insurmountable limit on governments’ political action, it has served as a point of veto, namely by means of the way in which the Constitutional Court has defended the right to social protection, be it in the form of social insurance, be it in the imposition of certain social minima.

The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (03) ◽  
pp. 616-618
Author(s):  
Diego Mazzoccone ◽  
Mariano Mosquera ◽  
Silvana Espejo ◽  
Mariana Fancio ◽  
Gabriela Gonzalez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Science Discipline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

scholarly journals Reconceptualising Solidarity in the Social Factory: Cultural Work between Economic Needs and Political Desires

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Anke Strauß ◽  
Alexander Fleischmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Factory ◽  
Economic Reasoning ◽  
Economic Needs

This article reconceptualises work-based solidarity as political action that is distinct from, yet interlinked with, a socio-economic mode of activity. To extend existing relational approaches to work, this article reads a case study of a cultural initiative through Hannah Arendt’s notions of labour, work and (political) action. With the latter being a form of engagement marked by plurality – the co-presence of equality and difference – the analysis shows how work-based solidarity as political activity is a temporary and precarious phenomenon. It necessitates constant engagement of various material and discursive elements to create its conditions. This article also shows how work-based solidarity is enabled through particular arrangements of activities stretching over both the socio-economic and the political sphere in a way that maintains the political mode of work distinct from socio-economic reasoning without ignoring its economic necessities.

scholarly journals Student/teachers from Turfloop: the propagation of Black Consciousness in South African schools, 1972–76

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (S1) ◽  
pp. S189-S209
Author(s):  
Anne Heffernan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The University ◽  
New Generation

AbstractThe movement of school teachers to primary and secondary schools around South Africa and its Bantustans in the early and mid-1970s was an intentional part of the project of propagating Black Consciousness to school learners during this period. The movement of these educators played a key role in their ability to spread Black Consciousness philosophy, and in the political forms and methods they chose in teaching it. These were shaped by their own political conscientization and training in ethnically segregated colleges, but also in large part by the social realities of the areas to which they moved. Their efforts not only laid the foundation for Black Consciousness organization in communities across South Africa, they also influenced student and youth mechanisms for political action beyond the scope of Black Consciousness politics. This article explores three case studies of teachers who studied at the University of the North (Turfloop) and their trajectories after leaving university. All of these teachers moved to Turfloop as students, and then away from it thereafter. The article argues that this pattern of movement, which was a direct result of apartheid restrictions on where black South Africans could live, study and work, shaped the knowledge they transmitted in their classrooms, and thus influenced the political consciousness of a new generation.

Gentlemen Dissenters: The Social and Political Meanings of Rational Dissent in the 1770s and 1780s

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Seed
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Radicalism

Conventional wisdom has long maintained that eighteenth-century religious dissent was a significant source of opposition to the Hanoverian status quo. For Trevelyan, for instance, dissenters were ‘vigilant champions of liberty and critics of government’. The high political visibility of rational dissenters in oppositional movements in the 1770s and 1780s – in opposition to the American war, the Test and Corporation Acts, slavery and the slave trade, the existing electoral system – has been particularly noted. However in recent years the political significance of religious dissent has been questioned. Roy Porter warns that the zeal for reform among dissenters should not be overestimated: ‘Not till the 1780s, and then only amongst a hothead minority, did Nonconformity show a potential for political radicalism.’ John Brewer has argued that the dissenting group associated with Hollis, Price, Priestley and ‘the small, snug, dissenting coterie of Newington Green’ marks one tradition of political opposition in the eighteenth century. But, largely confined to intellectual critique, remarkably uninvolved in the day-to-day cut-and-thrust of political action even evincing a patrician alarm at popular direct action, its contribution to political change was far less significant than the Wilkite movement.

Mass pressures, elite responses—roots of democratization: the case of the GDR

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transition Research ◽  
Agency And Structure

The article tries to explain the social and political upheaval in the former GDR by using a theoretical model worked out by Pierre Bourdieu. Transition research within political science focuses mainly on the functional prerequisites necessary to liberalize and democratize authoritarian regimes. Bourdieu’s model, however, also accounts for the historical events, the political actors and their actions, and the social and political mechanisms through which a rapid change can be realized. By applying this approach on the system’s change in the GDR it is not only possible to determine the structural and functional conditions of the upheaval, but also to describe the concrete historical processes of how the upheaval took place. The approach used here is an attempt to mediate between ‘agency’ and ‘structure’ and thus to integrate historical argumentation into the theoretical framework provided by political science and sociology.

A Survey of the Discipline of Political Science in Iran

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-127
Author(s):  
Maryam Rutner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
University Curricula

AbstractThis survey examines the content and purpose of the political science discipline in respect to seven prominent universities in Iran and its significance for the Iranian society. It is based on quantitative and qualitative data including personal interviews and survey results, as well as theses conducted by political science students, academic articles written by scholars in the field, and university curricula. The survey suggests that Iranian political science after the 1979 revolution addresses contemporary political problems and challenges related to Iran only to a limited extent, and is predominantly theoretical and “borrowed” in nature, despite the goal during the Cultural Revolution to indigenize and Islamicize the social sciences.

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