scholarly journals Extending the Concept of Ethnocracy: Exploring the Debate in the Baltic Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timofey Agarin
Keyword(s):  
Considerable Change ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
The Baltic

The advance of liberal understanding of democracy with its interest in and constrained ability to interfere with citizens’ identities made cases of ethnocracy rare over the past decades. Over the past 25 years, Baltic politics and societies have experienced considerable change, however, as I demonstrate, considerable debate persists around the issues central to the argument about ethnocracy in the region. In the context, when discussing the central role played by state institutions in negotiating conflicts between groups over access to scarce resources of the state, it is central to see minorities as being in both the inferior numerical position as well as in symbolically more disadvantageous place: If we see democratic politics for what they are as majoritarian politics, and if we see these as taking place in the context of state institutions designed to uphold the ethnic majority dominance, then any kind of liberal democratic politics would be a good candidate for ethnocracy. 

The State and Liberal Democratic Politics

2009 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek ◽  
Patrick Dunleavy
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Archives as Fields of Heritage-Making in Istanbul's Historic Peninsula

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-387
Author(s):  
Pinar Aykaç
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Actors ◽  
State Archives ◽  
Heritage Discourse ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Heritage-making is a process of valorization carried out using complex exchanges, contestations, and negotiations between various actors. State actors attempt, through various strategies, to employ heritage-making in order to construct a unified heritage discourse and avoid multivocality. One of these strategies is the control of state archives, an approach that seeks to dictate what is accessible and inaccessible and thus to dominate conceptualizations of heritage. This paper discusses how research in state archives sheds light on heritage-making in Istanbul's historic peninsula and how the state's tendency to restrain access reflects the contested nature of Istanbul's heritage. The restriction or denial of archival access becomes a significant component of heritage-making in Turkey, shaped not only by the past but also by the present. Therefore, archives and the practice of archival research become both a tool for the researcher and at the same time a subject worthy of research in and of itself. This paper argues that the attitudes of state institutions and the discourses they adopt in restraining access to archives are in fact objects of enquiry in the understanding of the precise boundaries of their scope of authority and, as such, can provide further insight into the fragmented nature of the state and state archives.

The Green State as Environmental Democracy? Political Power, Globalization, and Post-Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Green State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Preceding Discussion ◽  
Environmental Democracy

This chapter extends the preceding discussion about environmental democracy to the question of the “green state.” Debates about the possibility of green democratic states raise relevant issues for an assessment of democratic environmental prospects. For this reason, the chapter examines the theories of three leading environmental political theorists: Eckersley, Dryzek, and Barry. Although their works largely fall far short of identifying practical political openings for restructuring existing state institutions and practices, the issues and problems they raise remain instructive. The second half of the chapter assesses these concerns against broader contemporary political trends, in particular concerns about “democratic deficits” and the theories of “post-democracy” that have accompanied them. It examines the “ecological paradox” that a post-democratic politics poses for a sustainable transformation. These issues suggest that the pursuit of environmental democracy might best look for alternative locations outside of the state.

Standing “Aloof” from the State: Thoreau on Self-Government

2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Lane
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
The State ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self

Long an icon of the American cultural tradition, Henry Thoreau has recently been welcomed into political theory as a theorist whose political writings go beyond the essays on resistance to government, and contain ideas deeply important for understanding the American contribution to democratic experience. I extend this new appreciation by showing how Thoreau presents a specific model of self-government, individual self-government, that occurs under the frequently irrelevant roof provided by liberal democratic state institutions. Thoreau's model of self-government imagines women and men who are largely free of, or indifferent to, the state; but fully involved in an everyday experience that is deeply political because it allocates values for the individual. Walden is, in this sense, less an escape from government than it is an escape to it. Thoreau spans the spectrum of political philosophy, from Socrates′ concern with justice in the individual, to Nietzsche's model of the self as a governable community, but Thoreau's work is unique, and distinctively American, in its model of a hard-headed individual self-government based upon an unsentimentalized natural world.

scholarly journals Illiberalism and the democratic paradox: The infernal dialectic of neoliberal emancipation

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102110270
Author(s):  
Erik Swyngedouw
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Autocratic Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
Governance Arrangements

The main trust of this article unfolds around the impasse of democratic politics today, marked by the fading belief in the presumably superior architecture of liberal democratic institutions to nurture emancipation on the one hand, and the seemingly inexorable rise of a variety of populist political movements on the other. The first part of the article focuses on the lure of autocratic populism. The second part considers how transforming neoliberal governance arrangements pioneered post-truth autocratic politics/policies in articulation with the imposition of market rule and, in doing so, cleared the way for contemporary illiberal populisms. The third part considers the institutional configuration through which the democratic has been fundamentally transformed over the past few decades in the direction of a post-democratic constellation. The article concludes by arguing for the need to re-script emancipation as a process of political subjectivation unfolding trough a political act.

scholarly journals Statistics in Serbia

2004 ◽  
pp. 225-252
Author(s):  
Miodrag Nikolic
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Development ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Preparatory Period ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Types Of Information

From 1804 and the liberation from the foreign rule, Serbia tried to build a state of the European type. These efforts are indicated by the creation of numerous institutions which include statistics, too. Statistics offers testimonies about states and societies, representing them to the domestic and world public. It does so by collecting data about the territory and population, economy and culture of a country. The collected data are processed and published. Thus the politicians, scientists, businessmen and broad public acquire insights useful for the implementation of their activities and for a better understanding of the environment in which they work. Even before The First Serbian Uprising there were state institutions in the territory of the then Serbia. For the needs of that administration certain counts were made. But it was the work of foreign empires. Only the statistics created for the needs of Serbia?s own Principality, later Kingdom belongs to the history of Serbian statehood. That is why the national uprising begun in 1804 marks its justified historical start, and World War II was a logical moment for the end of this review. Understanding the development of the statistic service requires at least two types of information. First, it is useful to bear in mind those factors of social development which imposed the need for statistics in Serbia. The second set of remarks is related to the fact that Serbia at the time took the example of the statistical services in the more developed part of the world. Remarks about the stimuli from these two sources given in this text are only a reminder of the obligation to carry out still unfinished essential studies of the past. There were statistic reaserches in Serbia even before the foundation of the statistics service. Everything done in this area before 1862 belongs to the pioneering attempts, to the preparatory period, to prehistory. However, precisely these first endeavours clearly reveal governmental reasons for which statistics was created. That is why the statistics endeavours even before the establishment of the state statistics service also deserve attention.

scholarly journals Ethnocultural Neutrality and Nation-Building: A Critical Evaluation of Will Kymlicka's Fairness Based Argument for Minority Cultural Rights

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Steven Guy Riley
Keyword(s):  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Building Model ◽  
Societal Culture ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Multicultural Policies

<p>This thesis looks at an argument by Will Kymlicka in which he claims that the idea of an ethnoculturally neutral state is "manifestly false" and should be replaced by liberal political theorists with a model of the state as engaging in "nation-building" (Kymlicka 2001 pp23 - 27). Once we do this, Kymlicka argues, we see that the burden of proof regarding minority cultural rights has shifted away from the defender of such rights and falls equally on those who seek to deny those rights. We see this, Kymlicka claims, because the nation-building model of the state highlights a number of burdens that are placed on cultural minorities, burdens which are otherwise disguised by a norm of ethnocultural neutrality. Kymlicka argues that this means that the debate over minority cultural rights has moved on from substantive debates about the worth of cultural units (including his well known argument that we have a fundamental interest in the success of our own culture). In this thesis I argue for two main claims. The first is that the idea of ethnocultural neutrality is not manifestly false so long as it is understood as part of a requirement that state institutions and policies should be capable of an appropriate justification. Moreover I shall suggest that acceptance of such a norm can in fact be used by Kymlicka in order to ground the specific fairness based claims that he wants to make about majority nation-building in liberal democratic states. Secondly I shall argue that Kymlicka's claims about the fairness of majority nation-building rely upon the kind of substantive account supplied by his earlier argument that we have a fundamental, autonomy based, interest in the survival of our own societal-culture. In this respect, then, Kymlicka is wrong to suggest that the debate has moved on. My defence of ethnocultural neutrality helps us to see where there is underlying agreement amongst liberals on a number of multicultural policies and also highlights the areas of substantive disagreement which, I shall suggest, do not revolve around acceptance, or not, of a norm of ethnocultural neutrality but instead are deep rooted disagreements about the worth of our cultural and national attachments and how they are to be weighed against each other and against other interests that we have. On this score I suggest that Kymlicka's own autonomy argument is unconvincing.</p>

The relationship between religion and the state: the institution of ‘Commandment of the Faithful’ in Morocco†

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-81
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al Khamlichi
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

The term ‘Amir al-Mou'mineen’ (Commander of the Faithful) and ‘caliph’ were first bestowed on Omar Bin al-Khattab who became the successor of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) two-and-a-half years after he passed away. By virtue of the political and religious connotations of the term, the title conveyed overarching political authority – a kind of absolute power. The notion of Commander of the Faithful facilitated oppression of those who held different views, directly or indirectly, through employing fatawa, that is religious interpretations and edicts, in addition to mobilizing religious followers and devotees. This excess of political power is based on the definition of Imarat al-Mu'mineen (Commandment of the Faithful) or the Caliphate common in religious jurisprudence. This definition was coined by Ibn Khaldoun, and may be translated as: ‘making people abide by the view of Shar (the Law of God in Islam) regarding their temporal and afterlife interests’. Morocco has been no different from the rest of the Islamic world over the centuries, and now two distinct phenomena are apparent. First, the emergence of different groups, each with its own ideology and claims to be defending religion and pursuing its implementation. Such groups consider all other ways of thinking as apostasy that must be eliminated; while juxtaposed to them, there exist intellectual currents calling for the continued separation of religion and the state and its laws. During the past two decades this phenomenon has led to tragic situations in a considerable number of Islamic states, whose prospects now seem very gloomy. Second, a tight regulation of state institutions, together with constitutional guarantees of individual rights and freedoms, can prevent the manipulation of the state in the name of religion, and its use for tyranny and the oppression of individuals and minorities, be it in the name of Commandment of the Faithful or any other term. It seems that Morocco is aware of the power of these two phenomena, especially after it faced social unrest in 1992 and 2001, which almost destroyed its stability.

scholarly journals Ethnocultural Neutrality and Nation-Building: A Critical Evaluation of Will Kymlicka's Fairness Based Argument for Minority Cultural Rights

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Steven Guy Riley
Keyword(s):  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Building Model ◽  
Societal Culture ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Multicultural Policies

<p>This thesis looks at an argument by Will Kymlicka in which he claims that the idea of an ethnoculturally neutral state is "manifestly false" and should be replaced by liberal political theorists with a model of the state as engaging in "nation-building" (Kymlicka 2001 pp23 - 27). Once we do this, Kymlicka argues, we see that the burden of proof regarding minority cultural rights has shifted away from the defender of such rights and falls equally on those who seek to deny those rights. We see this, Kymlicka claims, because the nation-building model of the state highlights a number of burdens that are placed on cultural minorities, burdens which are otherwise disguised by a norm of ethnocultural neutrality. Kymlicka argues that this means that the debate over minority cultural rights has moved on from substantive debates about the worth of cultural units (including his well known argument that we have a fundamental interest in the success of our own culture). In this thesis I argue for two main claims. The first is that the idea of ethnocultural neutrality is not manifestly false so long as it is understood as part of a requirement that state institutions and policies should be capable of an appropriate justification. Moreover I shall suggest that acceptance of such a norm can in fact be used by Kymlicka in order to ground the specific fairness based claims that he wants to make about majority nation-building in liberal democratic states. Secondly I shall argue that Kymlicka's claims about the fairness of majority nation-building rely upon the kind of substantive account supplied by his earlier argument that we have a fundamental, autonomy based, interest in the survival of our own societal-culture. In this respect, then, Kymlicka is wrong to suggest that the debate has moved on. My defence of ethnocultural neutrality helps us to see where there is underlying agreement amongst liberals on a number of multicultural policies and also highlights the areas of substantive disagreement which, I shall suggest, do not revolve around acceptance, or not, of a norm of ethnocultural neutrality but instead are deep rooted disagreements about the worth of our cultural and national attachments and how they are to be weighed against each other and against other interests that we have. On this score I suggest that Kymlicka's own autonomy argument is unconvincing.</p>

Democracy and the State

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Warren
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

This article examines the logic that connects democracy to the state and argues that the functions of the state in enabling democracy are as important now and in the future as they have been in the past. It identifies the animating ideas and values of democracy and describes the ways in which these ideas are entwined with state power and the ways in which state institutions can become generative in ways that exceed the inherent limitations of the state's media of organization.

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