“The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Development of a Federalist Musical Tradition

Author(s):  
Billy Coleman

This chapter provides a new account of the political lineage of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that ties its composition to the identification of a distinctively Federalist conception of music in early national American politics. By connecting Francis Scott Key and “The Star-Spangled Banner” to an older Federalist conception of music in politics–populated by the likes of George Washington, Francis Hopkinson, John Adams, Joseph Hopkinson and others–the chapter argues that Federalism may bear more responsibility for the rise of popular American political culture than commonly thought. Influenced by contemporaneous English debates, Federalists justified their top-down approach to popular patriotic music by appealing to music’s capacity to moderate the temperament, to instill support in the nation’s leaders, and to soothe rather than inflame factional differences. Meaning that the composition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in effect, represented a culmination of Federalist efforts to use music as part of a political strategy to ensure their elite values were reflected in national culture. The chapter also differentiates Federalist from Republican party understandings of musical power and examines contemporary debate over the partisan purposes of “Hail Columbia.”

Author(s):  
Robert J. Allison

By spring 1776 British authority had collapsed in the colonies. Congress appointed John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston to draft a declaration of independence. ‘Independence’ describes this declaration and reveals how complex declaring independence would be. Americans were redefining their relationship with the British Empire, but also the basis of government and the nature of their society. The declaration was adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, but fighting continued. Richard Howe and Henry Clinton had been sent to achieve a political end—reconciliation—through military means, but George Washington was securing a military end—victory—through the political means of cultivating support from the people the army protected.


Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.


1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Whalen

Philo-Semitism is America's enduring contribution to the long, troubled, often murderous dealings of Christians with Jews. Its origins are English, and it drew continuously on two centuries of British research into biblical prophecy from the seventeenth Century onward. Philo-Semitism was, however, soon “domesticated” and adapted to the political and theological climate of America after independence. As a result, it changed as America changed. In the early national period, religious literature abounded that foresaw the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Israel as the ordained task of the millennial nation—the United States. This scenario was, allowing for exceptions, socially and theologically optimistic and politically liberal, as befit the ethos of a revolutionary era. By the eve of Civil War, however, countless evangelicals cleaved to a darker vision of Christ's return in blood and upheaval. They disparaged liberal social views and remained loyal to an Augustinian theology that others modified or abandoned.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
Vladimir Y. Bystrov ◽  
Vladimir M. Kamnev

The article discusses the attitude of Georg Lukács and his adherents who formed a circle “Techeniye” (lit. “current”) toward the phenomenon of Stalinism. Despite the political nature of the topic, the authors are aspired to provide an unbiased research. G. Lukács’ views on the theory and practice of Stalinism evolved over time. In the 1920s Lukács welcomes the idea of creation of socialism in one country and abandons the former revolutionary ideas expressed in his book History and Class Consciousness. This turn is grounded by new interpretation of Hegel as “realistic” thinker whose “realism” was shown in the aspiration to find “reconciliation” with reality (of the Prussian state) and in denial of any utopias. The philosophical evolution leading to “realism” assumes integration of revolutionaries into the hierarchy of existing society. The article “Hölderlin’s Hyperion” represents attempt to justify Stalinism as a necessary and “progressive” phase of revolutionary development of the proletariat. Nevertheless, events of the second half of the 1930s (mass repressions, the peace treaty with Nazi Germany) force Lukács to realize the catastrophic nature of political strategy of Stalinism. In his works, Lukács ceases to analyze political topics and concentrates on problems of aesthetics and literary criticism. However, his aesthetic position allows to reconstruct the changed political views and to understand why he had earned the reputation of the “internal opponent” to Stalinism. After 1956, Lukács turns to political criticism of Stalinism, which nevertheless remains unilateral. He sees in Stalinism a kind of the left sectarianism, the theory and practice of the implementation of civil war measures in the era of peaceful co-existence of two systems.


Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
John Anderson

This paper explores the way in which the music of John Adams responds to terrorism and looks at some of the controversies surrounding his work. It represents a reflection on how the musical and the political can interact in the modern world, engaging his work on the level of political dialogue.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110026
Author(s):  
Kurt Weyland

Responding to Rueda’s questions, this essay explains the political-strategic approach (PSA) to populism and highlights its analytical strengths, which have become even more important with the emergence of populist governments across the world. PSA identifies populism’s core by emphasizing the central role of personalistic leaders who tend to operate in opportunistic ways, rather than consistently pursuing programmatic or ideological orientations. PSA is especially useful nowadays, when scholars’ most urgent task is to elucidate the political strategies of populist chief executives and their problematic repercussions, especially populism’s threat to democracy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Ruzza ◽  
Giuseppe Gabusi ◽  
Davide Pellegrino

AbstractStarting from the imperfect nature of Myanmar's democracy, this paper aims to answer two questions. First, can Myanmar's transition be defined as a case of democratization, or is it, rather, a case of authoritarian resilience? To state this differently: is the progress enjoyed by Myanmar's polity the outcome of an ongoing process that is supposed to lead to a fully fledged democracy, or, rather, an attempt to enshrine elements of authoritarian governance under a democratic guise? Second, if the balance leans towards the latter instead of the former, how did authoritarian resilience work in Myanmar? The transition is analysed from a long-term perspective, moving from the 1988 pro-democracy uprising up to the most recent events. Data were collected from available published sources and from three fieldworks conducted by the authors in Myanmar. The paper concludes that Myanmar's transition is better understood as a case of authoritarian resilience than as democratization and highlights three core traits of Myanmar's authoritarian resilience: first, the very top-down nature of the political transformation; second, the incumbents’ ability to set the pace of political reform through the use of repression and political engineering; and third, the divide-and-rule strategy used as a means to keep contestations separated and local.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1047
Author(s):  
Neil A. O’Brian

What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion positions. I argue that because racial conservatives and military hawks entered the Republican coalition before abortion became politically activated, issue overlap among ordinary voters incentivized Republicans to oppose abortion rights once the issue gained salience. Likewise, because proabortion voters generally supported civil rights, once the GOP adopted a Southern strategy, this predisposed pro-choice groups to align with the Democratic party. A core argument is that preexisting public opinion enabled activist leaders to embed the anti (pro) abortion movement in a web of conservative (liberal) causes. A key finding is that the white evangelical laity’s support for conservative abortion policies preceded the political mobilization of evangelical leaders into the pro-life movement. I contend the pro-life movement’s alignment with conservatism and the Republican party was less contingent on elite bargaining, and more rooted in the mass public, than existing scholarship suggests.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 93-136
Author(s):  
Gökçen Başaran İnce

AbstractThe Free Republican Party (FRP; Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası), founded and dissolved in 1930, represented the second attempt to transition to a multi-party system in Turkey, following the formation of the Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası) in 1924. In contrast to the oppositional establishment of the latter, the FRP seemed to be a state-originated project whose establishment was decided upon by the elites of the day, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Its representation in contemporary cartoons is deemed important today given the political cartoon’s ability to simplify complex political messages into understandable symbols and metaphors and to address or reach those who may not be literate. Taking into account the social structure of society during this period, this aspect of the reach of cartoons becomes particularly important. Political cartoons’ ability to both support the text in a newspaper and penetrate historical memory through stereotypes is also significant in terms of the representation of personalities and events. This article will attempt to analyze the formation of the FRP and the depiction of its elites through newspaper cartoons. Three prominent and pro-Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) newspapers of this period—namely Cumhuriyet, Milliyet, and Vakit—will provide the material for the content and thematic analysis of the study.


Res Publica ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 461-173
Author(s):  
André Philipart

As the restructuration of municipalities (local power) could bring along new local political alliances, one would have thought about the possibility of a relevant modification of the political map of Wallonie (French speaking region of Belgium) after the «elections communales» of October 10th, 1976.Some experts had even conceived that the reorganization of the local authority was a manoeuvre of the central government, made in order to neutralize a region in which the «Parti Socialiste Belge» had the majority (voices 36.8 % and 35.5 % of the deputies and senators mandates) . Others thought that the national political strategy would prevail.On the contrary, the results of the election have proved, that the «Parti Socialiste Belge» has kept its predominance in Wallonie (175 lists PSB in the 262 municipalities, 87 lists «en cartel» ; 58 got the majority of the votes and participation in the coalitions in more than half of the municipalities).  The other political parties (PSC, PLP, etc.) have kept their position.The national strategy didn't appear neither in the program, nor in the constitution of the voting lists ( 445 lists for the national parties, 541 local lists).The national political «variables» (alternatives)(government versus opposition; Brussel v. the regions; center v. pheriphery ; community v. community), haven't brought modifications to the local objectives for which the main reason remains either to keep the power or to make its conquest.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document