A benevolence narrative

Author(s):  
Tamas Wells

This chapter describes an alternate narrative of democracy that centres around the value of sedana or benevolence. This narrative has three parts: the challenge of dictatorial leadership in Myanmar and the moral failure of citizens; the vision of a morally transformed society based on benevolent leadership and the values of unity and obligation; and a strategy of moral education to renew these values within society and promote discipline. This narrative highlights a moral rather than liberal vision – one in which the ability of individual political actors to transcend self-interest is of the highest importance. Proponents of this narrative emphasise that a focus on the narrow interests of particular individuals or groups will spark division and thereby undermine democracy – with the most immoral approach to politics being that of the ar nar shin (‘power-obsessed dictator’).

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1737-1741
Author(s):  
Rita Loloçi ◽  
Orneda Gega Hoxha

In this study, we will try to explain the correlation that exists between social ethics and personal ethics. Today’s challenges of human society in the field of ethics, morality and consciousness are not the same in different eras and in nations or groups of states. All three of these domains move more slowly than other processes, but are indispensable in everyday life. State authority in constantly way strive to create legal rules, but their non-compliance with ethic, principles of morality and conscience create major problems in contemporary development. Rapid contemporary developments, especially those in the field of technology and science have brought other concepts to social and personal ethics, but the necessity of their presence always adapting to other conditions has been felt. Today’s man seeks to understand it more in the form of ethics and social education. For example: nudity, morality principles to this phenomenon have changed from generation to generation, once considered shame and today as something private. The reality of the moral and conceptual problems that human and society have had over law, the rights and ethics have changed, concepts have been overthrown, and the way how people have been judged for different situations has evolved. Individual’s education in the traditional societies have been very important issue in his/ her life. That was a lifelong learning process instead. Education’s main purpose was to help the individual during his/her life so that he/she was not only responsible and aware of the environment, but to prepare the individual to fit into real life. In the actual society there are different points of views as far as the moral and civilizing education bonds are concerned. A mutual environment asks for mutual values, but on the other hand it is assumed the need to understand, accept and support even the values which may be different from the individual ones. In other words, the civil education has to treat moral as a separate issue, even though there are different opinions like: moral is a personal choice, moral is given by God, moral is a social agreement, etc. What we should emphasize is the fact that dealing with similar points of view is as important as debating against the opposite ones. It would be very positive if this could be achieved for a common understanding. But does everyone understand what moral, social and personal ethic is? Another question adds to this one: How is the problem of moral going to be treated? And is it necessary to set tasks or duties on moral as well? What features must moral education have in a view of the evolution of society as whole in terms of a new worldview? Today humanity is on the rise and is heading towards great organisation, but one must keep in mind that within this uniformity there is also diversity to be respected. The new worldview must be open to new progress and thinking not only from the content but also from the form.


Author(s):  
Christopher Wlezien

The representation of public opinion in public policy is of obvious importance in representative democracies. While public opinion is important in all political systems, it is especially true where voters elect politicians; after all, opinion representation is a primary justification for representative democracy. Not surprisingly, a lot of research addresses the connection between the public and the government. Much of the work considers “descriptive representation”—whether the partisan and demographic characteristics of elected politicians match the characteristics of the electorate itself. This descriptive representation is important but may not produce actual “substantive representation” of preferences in policy. Other work examines the positions of policymakers. Some of this research assesses the roll call voting behavior of politicians and institutions. The expressed positions and voting behavior of political actors do relate to policy but are not the same things. Fortunately, a good amount of research analyzes policy. With but a handful of exceptions noted below, this research focuses on expressed preferences of the public, not their “interests.” That is, virtually all scholars let people be the judges of their own interests, and they assess the representation of expressed opinion no matter how contrary to self-interest it may seem.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
ALAIN WIJFFELS

ABSTRACTThe settlement of structural commercial conflicts of interest cannot be exclusively subsumed under the heading of dispute resolution. Even when a particular conflict opposing specific individuals or groups of interests could be settled, the broader underlying conflicts of interest would subsist and re-emerge. Both commercial and institutional or political actors would therefore rely on various techniques of conflict management, a process imposing restraint on the opposing parties while allowing sufficient leeway for business to be continued. Both conflict resolution and conflict management were devices of public and corporate governance, and therefore, following the late medieval tradition, instruments more or less based on established patterns of legal or quasi-legal models legitimised by accepted or conventional parameters of ‘justice’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Rena Juliana ◽  
Reni Juliani ◽  
Nurkhalis Nurkhalis

Indonesia adheres to a democratic system of government. Each citizen, on the basis of the choice of ordinary people, chooses free political participation and then changes their direction as a sympathizer. Today, the excitement of political participation in Indonesian society to spread on Aceh has been somewhat hurt because some people have changed the political climate to be bad. This is reflected in the previous political participation side by side to deliver rhetoric to reap the voice of the people, but it has become a competition for each other. The purpose of this study is to find out what types of political participation occurred in constituents in Banda Aceh and West Aceh and who are the actors or groups that weaken or strengthen political participation in the constituents. The research method used is a qualitative approach with informants consisting of key informants, subject informants and non-subject informants. The results showed that the types of political participation in the constituents of Banda Aceh and West Aceh were very different and that sympathizers and political actors continued to strengthen and weaken the constituents. It is expected that this research will be a comparative study of the dynamics of policy in the Aceh region.


Author(s):  
Yi-min Lin

Chapter 7 explores how the tipping point of massive privatization came about and what set the tempo and shaped the scope of the precipitous changes that followed and spread beyond the initial limits set by central leaders. It shows that the trigger came from a confluence of challenges rendered by the sales growth strategy, the 1994 fiscal restructuring, and persistent and evolving demographic forces. The pace and extent of subsequent ownership change were greatly influenced by a political bandwagon effect, a shift in the focus of local officials’ self-interest calculus, and an intensification of insider manipulation in the public sector. Together, the interplay among these forces represented a continuation of the same opportunistic rationality that had driven the behavior of political actors up to the tipping point.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lei Qi ◽  
Bing Liu ◽  
Kaixian Mao

Purpose In the background of the post-financial crisis era and the transition of China’s economic development, the frequent occurrence of workplace deviant behavior in the economic field, such as stealing, bribery, caused a huge impact on the enterprise. In recent years, the deviant behavior of employees has been increased noticeably. The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of paternalistic leadership on employee deviant behavior in workplace. To have a deep understanding of the relationship between paternalistic leadership and employee deviant behavior, the author’s design rule oriented ethical climate and self-interest oriented ethical climate as two mediators in this research model. Design/methodology/approach Based on social learning theory and stressor-emotion model, this study conducts an investigation of influence mechanism between paternalistic leadership and workplace deviant behavior. Time-lagged data was collected from 226 employees from six cities in China. To test the hypothesis that the authors developed in this paper, the authors use empirical models from the existing literature about paternalistic leadership on employee deviant behavior. They establish multiple linear regressions to test the hypotheses. Findings This study reveals the direct effect of authoritarian leadership on employee deviant behavior and the moderated roles of benevolent leadership and moral leadership, also analysis the mediated mechanism of self-interest oriented ethical climate and rule oriented ethical climate. The results show that the higher the degree of authority leaders show in the organization, the easier to stimulate workplace deviance of employee, self-interest oriented ethical climate and rule oriented ethical climate play mediated role between authoritarian leadership and workplace deviant behavior. The interaction of benevolent leadership and moral leadership with authoritarian leadership can weaken the self-interest oriented ethical climate but has nothing to do with rule oriented ethical climate. Originality/value This study has three main contributions to the previous literature. First, this study explores the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee workplace deviance, which could enrich the research on these negative behaviors in the Chinese context. Second, this study unpacks the “black box” in which authoritarian leadership influences employee workplace deviant behavior. Third, this study further examines the impacts of different combinations of the three factors of paternalistic leadership.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-89
Author(s):  
Vasil Gluchman

Abstract With regard to existing concept of the moral education (ethics) in Slovakia, the questions of ethics and morals are only one of the partial sections. The dominant role is played by psychology based on Roberto Olivar’s concept with emphasis on pro-socialization and on Erickson’s concept of the psychosocial development. From the philosophy basis point of view, only Aristotle, even in reduced form and Spranger’s concept of the life forms are mentioned. Philosophy and ethics are only complements to more psychologically based educational program which is resulting from the problematic division of a social and moral experience into egoistic and prosocial. Egoism is presented in a distorted form and is characterized as the cause of all moral evil. However, there are several different types of understanding of the term egoism in philosophy and ethics as for example psychological and ethical egoism, or self-interest. Ethical egoism or self-interest cannot be identified with selfishness. The main aim of moral education should not be only to form the desired children and youth moral orientation but on the other hand, to form morally self-confident individuals who are able to solve the moral problems, to help the others to solve them as well and to be able to bear moral responsibility for their own deeds.


Grotiana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Weindl

AbstractIn this article Mare liberum is placed within the context of seventeenth-century European politics. It focuses on the development of conventional relations between European States regarding their interests outside of Europe and their importance concerning the status of Asian and African 'actors'. It turns out that in spite of Mare liberum's high-sounding proclamation of equality of non-European sovereigns with European States, Grotius's position as well as Dutch policy was inspired by self-interest and was essentially opportunistic. The Dutch Republic – as well as other European States – used the 'liberal' principles of Freedom of trade and the Universality of the Law of Nations to attack the Portuguese/Spanish claims of monopoly. However, as the Dutch Republic, Great Britain and France developed their own 'Spheres of Interest' in Asia, Africa and the Americas, they effectively excluded would-be competitors. Indeed, in the eighteenth century the 'pacte colonial' constituted a distinctive characteristic of the conventional and customary 'European Law of Nations'. As non-European political actors in the eighteenth century relatively lost military and political power, the European States finally relegated them to an inferior position, beyond the charmed circle of full 'subjects of Public International Law'. The article also is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about the relation between European imperialism and the development of the doctrine of European International Law.


Author(s):  
Philip J. Ivanhoe

This chapter develops and defends a morally and epistemically significant distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness and identifies various ways in which we can be one without being the other. For example, one can act altruistically but see such actions as a reflection of one’s own extraordinary character or generous nature, which is self-centered. The chapter explores the implications of the oneness view for altruism and self-interest, arguing that there are respects in which the dichotomy is preserved and respects in which it is not under various conceptions of oneness. It goes on to argue that a non-self-centered model of moral motivation has notable advantages over the self-sacrificial model. This offers an opportunity to reflect on the real causes of moral failure, which more often are a consequence of self-centeredness than a lack of moral knowledge or insight.


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