Strategic Approaches to Social Freedom in Nigeria: Exploring Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-61
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Social Consciousness ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Pedagogy Of The Oppressed ◽  
Critical Action ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
Class Distinction

The study interrogated Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a solution to social injustice in Nigeria. The purpose of adopting the work of this great Philosopher is to examine critically and analyse how the Brazilians were able to solve social injustices in their country. The study employed analytic and prescriptive techniques in philosophy to handle issues that aroused in the cause of this study so as to avoid ambiguity. The paper revealed that individual’s role in achieving social freedom and community development through critical discussion, critical reflection, and unity/love critical action is very important. The study concluded that education that develops social consciousness in individuals should be encouraged in order to solve the problem of class distinction, inequality and social injustice in regards to holistic development of Nigeria as a community. It recommended that there should be means of mass sensitisation which includes all educational outlets, media houses, Non-Governmental Oganisations (NGOs) and Philanthropists Sponsored Programmes (PSPs). Trade Unions (TUs), professional bodies, political parties, religious organisations and traditional institutions are to sensitise their members on the need for active participation and contribution to governance.

Intra-party Deliberation and Reflexive Control within a Deliberative System

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Biale ◽  
Valeria Ottonelli
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Systemic Approach ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Deliberative System ◽  
Special Responsibility

From within a “systemic approach” to deliberative democracy, political parties can be seen as crucial actors in facilitating deliberation, by playing epistemic, motivational, and justificatory functions that are central to the deliberative ideal. However, we point out that if we assume a purely outcome-oriented conception of the role of parties within a deliberative system, we risk losing sight of a central tenet of deliberative democracy and of its distinctive principle of legitimacy, namely, that citizens must be able to exercise critical reflection on the grounds of democratic decisions. We argue that parties have a special responsibility in making a deliberative system meet this requirement, and that such special role can be fulfilled only if parties’ programs, values, and strategies are shaped through intra-party deliberation. On the grounds of this discussion, we define a model of intra-party deliberation that is based on the principles of mutual acceptability, pluralism, and publicity.

Self-Limitation and Democracy Lefort’s Model of Council Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-131
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Parliamentary Government ◽  
Hungarian Revolution ◽  
Claude Lefort ◽  
Cornelius Castoriadis ◽  
Mixed Constitution ◽  
Political Thinker

This chapter explores the theory of council democracy developed by the French political thinker Claude Lefort. Like his onetime compatriot in Socialisme ou Barberie, Cornelius Castoriadis, Lefort also developed an early and a late theory of council democracy. While Lefort and Castoriadis were basically in agreement on the principles of council democracy at the time of Hungarian Revolution of 1956, while they were both members of Socialisme ou Barberie, Lefort provided a markedly different analysis of the council system after he broke with Socialisme ou Barberie and developed with famous theory of the democracy as the empty place of power. In Lefort’s late theorisation of council democracy, the councils collaborate with trade unions and political parties to make up a conglomerated, federalised polity, which is founded upon the principles of self-limitation and mixed constitution. While liberal interpretations of Lefort have stressed how representative, parliamentary government is the best expression of ‘the empty place of power’ and radical democratic interpretations have argued of inherent hostility between democracy and institutions in Lefort’s writings, this chapter argues that Lefort’s theory of council democracy could productively be understood as an institutional approximation of democracy as an empty place of power.

Trade Unions and Political Parties in France: Some Recent Trends

ILR Review ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Daniel Reynaud
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Recent Trends

The Politics of Trade Union Formation in the Java Sugar Industry, 1945–1949

1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Brown
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Sugar Industry ◽  
The Political ◽  
Union Formation ◽  
Sugar Production ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Revolution

Comparatively little of a scholarly nature has been written about Indonesian trade unions, particularly on the two decades from 1945 to 1965 when, like the political parties to which so many of them were affiliated, the unions had their heyday. This paper focuses on the development of trade unions in one specific industry: refined sugar production. The period to be examined—1945 to 1949—runs from the proclamation of Indonesian independence by Sukarno and Hatta, through the revolution fought against the returning Dutch, to December 1949 when the Netherlands finally acknowledged Indonesian independence. It was during this period that the major post-war sugar industry unions were established. The circumstances surrounding the establishment of these unions will be examined, along with their leaders and members, ideological leanings and political and industrial objectives.

POLITICAL POLICE IN LUBELSZCZYZNA IN THE SECOND POLISH REPUBLIC AS ELEMENT OF STATE SECURITY SYSTEM. ORIGINS, ORGANISATION, ACTIVITY

2011 ◽  
Vol 162 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-199
Author(s):  
Zbigniew SIEMAK
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Information Service ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
State Security ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
The People ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
The Social

Political Police in the Second Polish Republic was a secret, specialised service assigned mainly to surveying the whole of political and social life in the country and to chasing perpetrators of anti-state crimes, especially the people suspected of revolutionary activity. In the period discussed, it was completely reorganised four times and it appeared under different names: Political Defence, Information Service, Political Police and Investigation Service with specialised departments to fight against political crimes. In practice, Political Police used methods defined as investigational, e.g. arrests, temporary custody, search of people and property, questioning, chases; and operational ones, e.g. observation, surveillance, tapping or confidential enquiry.Till 1926 political services in Lublin Voivodeship were particularly interested in social and political organisations, the activity of which posed a threat to the legal order and the social arrangement of the state at that time. Full operational surveillance was carried out with respect to parties and political movements of communist nature, national minorities and radical peasant activists, whereas the parties that wanted to keep the bourgeois order were not of particular interest to political counterintelligence, but they were only under discrete operational surveillance.After the May Coup, the range of interests of information services in the fourth district changed substantially. In addition to the activity of communists and national minorities representatives, it encompassed the whole legal Pilsudski opposition.Political Police in Lublin Voivodeship had a very important role in internal politics. It worked among other things on:• exposing social tensions, anti-government atmosphere, revolutionary and anti-state actions (mainly communists and nationalists of national minorities);•observing legal groups and political parties as well as trade unions and parliament representatives.Escalation of political crimes in Lublin district was the largest in those regions where illegal communist organisations, Ukrainian national minorities (poviats: Hrubieszowski, Tomaszowski Chelmski and Wlodawski) and Jewish national minorities (poviats: Chelmski, Siedlecki, Wlodawski, and Grodzki Lubelski) were active.Accusations of communist activity were mainly made against people of Jewish nationality and somewhat less frequently against those of Ukrainian, Belarusian or Polish nationalities.

Costa Rica fiscal reform looks doomed to fail

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Regional Trade ◽  
Fiscal Reform ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Government ◽  
Wage Increases

Subject Fiscal reform protests. Significance President Carlos Alvarado is facing his most severe test since taking office in May, with his efforts to pass a long-awaited fiscal reform sparking strikes and protests across the country. Although the government has initiated a dialogue with trade unions, sustained opposition means that the fiscal reform is likely to be watered down substantially. Impacts Transport disruption will affect regional trade, compounding the transit problems caused by unrest in Nicaragua. The national strike’s success may encourage more such actions in future, potentially over public-sector wage increases. Alvarado’s weakness will increase the dominance of rival political parties in the legislature.

Immigration Policies in Portugal: Limits and Compromise in the Quest for Regulation

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Sabino ◽  
João Peixoto ◽  
Alexandre Abreu
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Foreign Labour ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Structural Demand ◽  
And Control

AbstractThe main objective of this article is to describe the key elements of the making of immigration control policies in Portugal until 2007. First, the main policy initiatives and measures concerning the admission of foreigners are presented. Second, the mechanisms and difficulties surrounding the issue of immigration control are discussed, and a tension is identified between the structural demand for foreign labour and the measures taken for control. Third, the positions of the main political parties and of the most relevant stakeholders are highlighted. The evidence indicates that despite continued attempts to control immigration, the stated policy objectives are at odds with the outcome, characterised by endemic irregular migration. The factors hindering regulation are both internal and external, encompassing the economic, social, institutional and legal domains. Given the limits to control, policy-makers have sought to achieve a compromise by enacting frequent regularization programmes while seeking to improve admission and control. In this process, the main political parties have exhibited a significant degree of consensus, which may be partially accounted for by the convergence among the other stakeholders (employers, trade unions, Catholic organisations and immigrants' associations) and by the increasing, albeit contradictory, acceptance of immigration by public opinion.

The Paradox of Modernity in Turkey

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siret Hürsoy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Strong State ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
The Military

The central argument of this article is that the strong state-centred tradition of Turkey has recently gone out of fashion. The breakdown of authoritarianism and state-centred approach and moving into a successful democratic consolidation and society-centred approach in Turkey requires choices to be made and alliances to be formed among intellectual-bureaucratic elite, the military, political parties, trade unions, other interest groups and various types of societal organisations. One of the most important difficulties for consolidating democracy in Turkey has been the complexity of creating stable, viable, accountable, responsive, predictable, representative, transparent, efficient and problem-solving oriented legitimate institutions where all citizens, regardless of ethnic origin or religious orientation, have a voice and enabling representation in such bureaucratic organs that altogether make-up the institution of state. This article will assert that the forces of democratic transition from a state-centred approach to a society-centred approach in Turkey are based on resolving the two main potentially difficult problems that are related with constant questioning of the legitimacy and democratic consolidation of the state apparatus: ethnic and religious paradoxes.

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