The will of the people: dialectical voluntarism and the subject of politics: Peter Hallward

2011 ◽  
pp. 99-113
Keyword(s):  
The Will ◽  
MaRBLe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Rozenburg

While the decision to organise a Brexit has been the subject of seemingly endless debate, the legitimacy of this decision is generally accepted by those on both sides of the fence. The notion that a Brexit must happen, whatever the costs, as “the people have spoken”, has cemented itself in the public debate as some form of objective truth. However, in order to safeguard British democracy, it is in fact necessary to take a more critical approach to this perceived “legitimacy”. In order to provide such an approach, this paper challenges the Brexit’s democratic legitimacy on two levels. First, using Canovan’s “redemptive” and “pragmatic” faces of democracy, it argues that the “will of the people” has been unable to legitimise the decision to leave the EU. Second, focusing in on the conduct of the referendum, it argues that due to procedural errors, the referendum has additionally been unable to translate “the will of the people” in the first place. By taking this two-step approach to the Brexit’s legitimacy question, this paper exposes the general fragile nature of referenda and highlights how the Brexit referendum has failed to communicate the “will of the people” and subsequently strengthen the UK’s democratic process.


2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
ETHAN PUTTERMAN

Who drafts the laws in Rousseau's ideal state? According to John T. Scott it is the people alone who execute this function and Rousseau “does not positively argue that commissaires, magistrates, or anyone else has the power to propose laws.” Challenging this view, I argue that the philosopher's varied statements on the subject of lawgiving can be shown to establish merely a right by the people to participate in agenda-setting by others. Rousseau believes that the laws must reflect the will of the people but not necessarily through their physical writing, drafting, or framing of constitutional legislation. More important than popular agenda-setting is the majority's freedom to check those who do draft the laws. Amending my earlier argument that the sovereign is barred from legislating, I reveal how Rousseau's notion of self-legislation as “gatekeeping,” rather than agenda-setting, is central to the political theory and institutions of Du contrat social.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuanming Zhang

From the time when it came to power, the Chinese Communist Party’s mode of governance has shifted from "ruling according to policies" to "ruling according to law." Domestic scholars have done a lot of discussion on the basic connotation and related concepts of governing by law. Most of these theoretical discussions are static and are an analysis and explanation of the actual situation. The Communist Party’s ruling turn is an inevitable choice of regularity within the ruling logic, and more of a dynamic choice. The study of the logic of governing by law can more clearly discover the law of development followed by the Communist Party's way of governing. After this static analysis, the development route within the logic can be extracted. Combining the research results of academia, construct a dynamic mode of governing by law, find the subject, object and development path of governing by law, so as to clarify the reasonable boundary of civil rights, party power and political power, coordinate the development relationship among the masses, political parties and the state, and standardize The progressive process of the will of the people, the will of the party, and the will of the state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Langhauser

This article discusses the issues involved in legislative amendment of citizen initiatives in Maine by explaining the legislature’s authority to amend or repeal citizen initiatives, how and why the Maine Constitution specifically provides for that authority, and how and why that approach is conceptually consistent with numerous other provisions and principles of our Constitution. This article further suggests the types of issues that, regardless of the subject matter in question, the legislature should consider in deter­mining whether, and if so how and when, to change a directly democratic act of the people. Such considerations when earnestly applied can serve to balance the legislature’s representational duty to mind the popular will as well as its leadership responsibility to steward the state with the additional exercise of the legislature’s own lawmaking power.


Philosophy ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 22 (82) ◽  
pp. 99-111
Author(s):  
W. D. Handcock

It is an odd thing that after two and a half centuries' experience of representative government—if we take the 1688 Revolution as ourstarting point—we have still no very certain or coherent theory of what it represents. The easy-going eighteenth-century idea that their own sense of political responsibility and the ties of political sympathy uniting them to the people at large enabled representatives chosen from among the “natural” leaders of the nation adequately to fulfil their representative role, despite the meagre measure of choice exercised in their denomination; and the rather later notion that the function of a representative system was to reflect the class structure and dominant interests of the nation, have both failed to survive criticism at the hustings, and the spread of political consciousness associated with the rise of democracy. Modern ideas identify representative government with self-government, and insist on applying to it Colonel Rainboro's dictum that “the poorest he (or she) that is in England hath a life to live, as the richest he.” On the subject of what representative government represents there may nowadays be distinguished two views; what may be called the popular, or hustings view, and the academic theory, which, while different in form, preserves the same general character as the hustings view.The hustings view is unqualified majoritarianism. Representative government is government by the will of the majority. Certain ideas underlying, or associated with this view may profitably be distinguished. The most important is that of individual right. Majoritarianism is no respecter of tradition, or birth, or inborn talents, or acquired experience; it is no respecter of persons at all, only a counter of them. In its view there is no species of authority that gives one person or class of persons the right to push others around; everyone, indeed, has a presumptive right not to be pushed around.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48
Author(s):  
Warren Swain

Intoxication as a ground to set aside a contract is not something that has proved to be easy for the law to regulate. This is perhaps not very surprising. Intoxication is a temporary condition of varying degrees of magnitude. Its presence does however raise questions of contractual autonomy and individual responsibility. Alcohol consumption is a common social activity and perceptions of intoxication and especially alcoholism have changed over time. Roman law is surprisingly quiet on the subject. In modern times the rules about intoxicated contracting in Scottish and English law is very similar. Rather more interestingly the law in these two jurisdictions has reached the current position in slightly different ways. This history can be traced through English Equity, the works of the Scottish Institutional writers, the rise of the Will Theory, and all leavened with a dose of judicial pragmatism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe

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.


Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Tushar Kadian

Actually, basic needs postulates securing of the elementary conditions of existence to every human being. Despite of the practical and theoretical importance of the subject the greatest irony is non- availability of any universal preliminary definition of the concept of basic needs. Moreover, this becomes the reason for unpredictability of various political programmes aiming at providing basic needs to the people. The shift is necessary for development of this or any other conception. No labour reforms could be made in history till labours were treated as objects. Its only after they were started being treating as subjects, labour unions were allowed to represent themselves in strategy formulations that labour reforms could become a reality. The present research paper highlights the basic needs of Human Rights in life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Ubaidillah ◽  
Misbahul Khoir

The objectives of research include; first, to describe what local Islamic working ethos are as the basis for the resilience of songkok, whip and slap handicraft businesses in Serah Panceng Gresik Village. Second, to describe the resilience of the songkok, whip and slap handicraft business in the village of Serah Panceng Gresik. This study is a qualitative-descriptive study with the aim of understanding the phenomena experienced by the subject of research including behavior, perception, motivation, and action holistically by utilizing various scientific methods. Data collection methods include; Observation, In-depth Interview or Focus Group Discussion, Documentation. Data analysis techniques include: processing and preparing data for analysis, reading the entire data, analyzing in more detail by coding data, considering detailed instructions that can help the coding process, giving descriptions that will be presented in the report, interpreting and interpreting data. The results showed that in Serah Village local Islamic working ethos were preserved by the community, such as alms giving, reading dziba', reading tahlil, attending haul akbar, and reading sholawat together every Friday. Although in the tradition it does not involve songkok, whip, and slap directly, there is a good impact to support the resilience of songkok, but not whip, and slap production. Religious rituals by praying together asking Allah to facilitate and carry out business in production songkok, whip, and slap are an expression of gratitude for what God gave to the people of Serah Village. All economic activity done by Serah community is meant to get God’s willing. Keywords: Islamic Working Ethos, Handicraft Businesses


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