scholarly journals Practicing Ballot Secrecy: Postal Voting and the Witness Requirement at the 2019 Finnish Elections

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjukka Weide
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Written Responses ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Voting Methods ◽  
Democratic Nation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
Institutional Connection

Electoral rights belong to the core of citizenship in democratic nation-states. Voting, then, represents an actualization of the relationship between the citizen and the political community. For citizens living outside the country in which they are eligible to vote, voting signifies a rare institutional connection to the country of origin. The aim of this article is to explore the introduction of the postal vote, a new form of voting for external voters at Finnish elections, from the grassroots perspective. The study focuses on how a central policy concern, safeguarding ballot secrecy, was resolved in the policy implementation by the witness requirement, and how the individual voters subsequently applied it. According to the voters’ accounts of the act of voting, the adopted method for underlining the importance of ballot secrecy in the Finnish overseas postal voting system, for many voters, makes little sense. While they effectively practice ballot secrecy, many fail to demonstrate this to the witnesses they were supposed to convince. Conversely, for these voters, the witness requirement merely works to break the secondary secrecy of elections, namely the secrecy of their participation itself. The empirical material for the article comprises policy documents and thematic text material (interviews, written responses) from 31 Finnish citizens living outside Finland. The article contributes to the scholarly debates on voting as a social, institutional and material practice. It further provides policy-relevant knowledge about grassroots implementation to various electoral administrations many of which, at the time of writing, face pressure to reform their repertoire of voting methods to function better in exceptional circumstances, such as a pandemic.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

Kant and the Common Law: Intersubjectivity in Aesthetic and Legal Judgment

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 429-460
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Edlin
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article develops some conceptual correlations between Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment and the common law tradition of legal judgment. The article argues that legal judgment, like aesthetic judgment, is best conceived in terms of intersubjective validity rather than objective truth. Understanding the parallel between aesthetic and legal judgment allows us to appreciate better the relationship between subjectivity and intersubjectivity, the individual and the community, in the formulation and communication of judgments, which combine a personal response and a reasoned determination intended for a discrete audience. The article frames and pursues these themes in relation to four core concepts in Kant’s aesthetic theory: judgment, communication, community, and disinterestedness. Through sustained comparison and application of these concepts in aesthetic judgment and legal judgment, the article provides a conception of judging that more accurately captures the common law role and relationship of the individual judge and the institutional judiciary as integral parts of the broader legal and political community.

Celebrating Patriotism: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Compositions for the Militia in Hamburg

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
MARKUS RATHEY
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Georg Philipp Telemann ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Patriotic Education ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTWhen Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach became cantor in Hamburg in 1768, he was faced with a long musical tradition shaped by his ancestor Georg Philipp Telemann. Part of this tradition was the provision of compositions for the annual meeting of the captains of the militia, for whom Telemann had composed several oratorios and serenades. Even though Bach composed only two such Bürgerkapitänsmusiken, they are instructive pieces, showing the relationship between music, culture and politics in late eighteenth-century Hamburg, which at the time was a centre of political discourse. Questions of democracy, the relationship between government and the individual, and the possibilities of ‘patriotic education’ were discussed earlier in Hamburg than in other regions of Germany. It is especially the question of patriotism and of patriotic behaviour that informs Bach’s Bürgerkapitänsmusiken. An analysis both of the librettos (written by Christian Wilhelm Alers) and of Bach’s music shows how the ideas of enlightened patriotic discourse lurk behind these compositions and how they aim to depict an ideal political community.

The Hegelian state and International polities

1983 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
International Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Moral Perspective ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

It is a characteristic of political theory and international politics that certain wellworn stereotypes are perennially wheeled out for generations of students. Some of these may be useful landmarks for scholarship, others offer only partial insights. This paper addresses one of these stereotypes which does not dissolve with more intensive study. It attaches to the Hegelian concept of the state in relation to international politics. I refer to the view that Hegel's concept of the state, elaborated in the Philosophy of Right, is the final unit of analysis for any theory of international politics; that it is impossible to go beyond the nation state; that it possesses a finality in that international affairs are only to be understood through the relation between nation states. One of the conclusions which is sometimes drawn from this stereotype. is that Hegel's account of international politics is Hobbesian in character; that is to say, the relation between states is rather like that between individuals in Hobbes’ state of nature. The ruling principle would thus be that ‘clubs are trumps’; or, more conveniently, that might is right. For an Hegelian there cannot be a legitimate concept of international order, because order only exists in the individual state. Each state has its own legal system and concept of right, therefore the relationship between states is simply the conflict of rights. To put this in a moral perspective: states are neither right nor wrong; this is simply how things are. This has often led to the paradoxical conclusion that Hegel is a realist as regards international affairs, though perhaps a better term would be ‘idealist-realist’. The aim of this paper is to examine the arguments for and against such a stereotype.

scholarly journals Voting Method Based on an Average Gap Assessment

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1176-1186
Author(s):  
Zoinabo Savadogo ◽  
Abdoulaye Compaore ◽  
Pegdwinde Ousseni Fabrice Ouedraogo
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Political System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Voting Methods ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Collective Preference ◽  
Voting Method ◽  
Democratic Political System

The theory of social choice is the study of voting methods. In the literature manystudies have been conducted for the development of a fair voting system, that is to say a voting method that allows to aggregate the individual preferences in a collective preference representing in the most possible faithfull way individual preferences. Yet some voting methods do not allow to obtain a consensus. So there are a lot of paradoxes in electoral systems and related results in the theory of social choice are also paradoxical. This is the case, for example, with Arrow’s theorem showing that no voting method can simultaneously verify a restricted list of  roperties that are desirable in a democratic political system. That is to mean that the search for a system that makes it possible to reach a consensus remains a concern in the theory of social choice. In this article we have combined various voting methods based on grading, scoring or approving to contribute to literature with a new voting system filling fair properties.

Citizenship For Sale?

2017 ◽  
pp. 788-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayelet Shachar
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Net Worth ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

“There are some things that money can’t buy.” Is citizenship among them? This chapter explores this question by highlighting the core legal and ethical puzzles associated with the surge in cash-for-passport programs. The spread of these new programs is one of the most significant developments in citizenship practice in the past few decades. It tests our deepest intuitions about the meaning and attributes of the relationship between the individual and the political community to which she belongs. This chapter identifies the main strategies employed by a growing number of states putting their visas and passports “for sale,” selectively opening their otherwise bolted gates of admission to the high-net-worth individuals of the world. Moving from the positive to the normative, the discussion then elaborates the main arguments in favor of, as well as against, citizenship-for-sale. The discussion draws attention to the distributive and political implications of these developments, both locally and globally, and identifies the deeper forces at work that contribute to the perpetual testing, blurring, and erosion of the state-market boundary regulating access to membership.

scholarly journals Socrates and the Politics of Music: Preludes of the Republic

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Long
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
The Self ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Erotic

At least since the appearance of Aristotle’s Politics, Plato’s Republic has been read as arguing for a politics of unity in which difference is understood as a threat to the polis. By focusing on the musical imagery of the Republic, and specifically on its compositional organization around three ‘preludes’, this essay seeks an understanding of Socratic politics that moves beyond the hypothesis of unity. In the first ‘prelude’, Thrasymachus and his insistence that justice is the self-interest of the stronger threatens to subject the harmony of the community to the tyrannical whims of the individual. In the second, the perfected justice of Adeimantus’s city threatens to destroy the erotic rhythm of difference that is the very condition for the possibility of the polis. It is only in the song of dialectic, which itself is called a ‘prelude’, that the tension between the rhythm of plurality and the rational homophony of unity is dynamically tuned in such a way that both the anarchic politics of self-interest and the totalitarian politics of rationalized oppression are equally muted. This conception of politics is embodied in the relationship that emerges between Glaucon and Socrates. Ultimately, the true political community is established here, between rational, erotic individuals seeking justice in concrete, living dialogue.

Accent Policy and Accent Modification Enterprises as Potential Indicators of Intercultural Power Relations: A Call for an Updated Research Agenda

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brynne D. Ovalle ◽  
Rahul Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This article has two purposes: (a) to examine the relationship between intercultural power relations and the widespread practice of accent discrimination and (b) to underscore the ramifications of accent discrimination both for the individual and for global society as a whole. First, authors review social theory regarding language and group identity construction, and then go on to integrate more current studies linking accent bias to sociocultural variables. Authors discuss three examples of intercultural accent discrimination in order to illustrate how this link manifests itself in the broader context of international relations (i.e., how accent discrimination is generated in situations of unequal power) and, using a review of current research, assess the consequences of accent discrimination for the individual. Finally, the article highlights the impact that linguistic discrimination is having on linguistic diversity globally, partially using data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and partially by offering a potential context for interpreting the emergence of practices that seek to reduce or modify speaker accents.

Investigating the Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Stigma Among Young Adults With History of Suicide Attempts

Crisis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meshan Lehmann ◽  
Matthew R. Hilimire ◽  
Lawrence H. Yang ◽  
Bruce G. Link ◽  
Jordan E. DeVylder
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
High Risk Population ◽  
High Functioning ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Background: Self-esteem is a major contributor to risk for repeated suicide attempts. Prior research has shown that awareness of stigma is associated with reduced self-esteem among people with mental illness. No prior studies have examined the association between self-esteem and stereotype awareness among individuals with past suicide attempts. Aims: To understand the relationship between stereotype awareness and self-esteem among young adults who have and have not attempted suicide. Method: Computerized surveys were administered to college students (N = 637). Linear regression analyses were used to test associations between self-esteem and stereotype awareness, attempt history, and their interaction. Results: There was a significant stereotype awareness by attempt interaction (β = –.74, p = .006) in the regression analysis. The interaction was explained by a stronger negative association between stereotype awareness and self-esteem among individuals with past suicide attempts (β = –.50, p = .013) compared with those without attempts (β = –.09, p = .037). Conclusion: Stigma is associated with lower self-esteem within this high-functioning sample of young adults with histories of suicide attempts. Alleviating the impact of stigma at the individual (clinical) or community (public health) levels may improve self-esteem among this high-risk population, which could potentially influence subsequent suicide risk.

Kazakhstan’s Economic Growth in the Context of the World Economy

2006 ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Arystanbekov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Crude Petroleum ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

Kazakhstan’s economic policy results in 1995-2005 are considered in the article. In particular, the analysis of the relationship between economic growth and some indicators of nation states - population, territory, direct access to the World Ocean, and extraction of crude petroleum - is presented. Basic problems in the sphere of economic policy in Kazakhstan are formulated.

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