Emma Jones

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry T. Watkins
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Book Club ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Political Act ◽  
San Carlos ◽  
Gain Access

Economic expansion and ideas about the free market had a profound impact on what magazines and books could print as well as distribute, which meant that queer folk in far-flung places could gain access to information about homosexuality, civil rights activity, and identity-based discourses. They could become part of the national imagined community of gays and lesbians. In Pensacola, “adopted brothers” and lifelong lovers Ray and Henry Hillyer had a desire to keep abreast of the latest news and other homosexual happenings. The started a small book club in their home under the cover of a non-descript name Emma Jones that by 1974 had grown into a weekend-long convention with beach parties and patriotic drag shows at the San Carlos Hotel that drew thousands to the beaches of Pensacola. When queer visibility threatened Pensacola tourism, bars were raided, arrests were made, and Emma’s party was cancelled. Partying does not always lead to political action, but creating a space for gay men and lesbians to feel at ease with themselves is a profoundly political act. By deploying their bodies and their dollars, the Emma Jones Society established an LGBT presence in “The Sunshine State.”

The 1970s

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Borstelmann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
American Society

This book looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, this book creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. It demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. This book explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, this book shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

Mobilized by Injustice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah L. Walker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal Contact ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Depth Interviews

Springing from decades of abuse by law enforcement and an excessive criminal justice system, members of over-policed communities lead the current movement for civil rights in the United States. Activated by injustice, individuals protested police brutality in Ferguson, campaigned to end stop-and-frisk in New York City, and advocated for restorative justice in Washington, D.C. Yet, scholars focused on the negative impact of punitive policy on material resources, and trust in government did not predict these pockets of resistance, arguing instead that marginalizing and demeaning policy teaches individuals to acquiesce and withdraw. Mobilized by Injustice excavates conditions under which, despite otherwise negative outcomes, negative criminal justice experiences catalyze political action. This book argues that when understood as resulting from a system that targets people based on race, class, or other group identifiers, contact can politically mobilize. Negative experiences with democratic institutions predicated on equality under the law, when connected to a larger, group-based struggle, can provoke action from anger. Evidence from several surveys and in-depth interviews reveals that mobilization as result of negative criminal justice experiences is broad, crosses racial boundaries, and extends to the loved ones of custodial citizens. When over half of Blacks and Latinos and a plurality of Whites know someone with personal contact, the mobilizing effect of a sense of injustice promises to have important consequences for American politics.

scholarly journals The crisis of modernity as the crisis of the political: Towards a critique of the reason of the ethos

2003 ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
Simo Elakovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity ◽  
Political Decision Making

The crisis of modernity as the crisis of the political is seen by the author primarily as a crisis of the "measure" of the criterion of political decision making and action. This crisis is understood in the first place as a crisis of self-awareness and practice of the ethos. Machiavelli was the first to attempt a solution to this problem by introducing the concept of virtus, which became the fundamental principle of modern political philosophy. However, many modern and contemporary interpreters of Machiavelli's thought often ignore the social and political context in which the political doctrine of the Florentine thinker arose. Namely, Machiavelli's effort to find an authentic form of the political act that would make possible a harmonization and stabilization of the dramatic political circumstances then prevailing in Italian cities required a reliable diagnosis and adequate means for a successful therapy of the sick organism of the community. The epochal novelty in Machiavelli's political theory was the shift from the ancient theorization of virtue to its modern operationalization. Nevertheless, this shift is often interpreted as a radical opposing of the Greek concept of arete to the Roman virtus, which is crudely and simplistically reduced to bravery and strength necessary for taking and keeping political power. Hegel in his political philosophy travels an important part of the road - unconsciously rather than consciously - along with Machiavelli and Shelling. This particularly holds for his understanding of the necessity of strength and bravery in the process of operationalizing the spirit of freedom in history through the mediation of "negation" as "the power of evil". The mediation of subjectivity and substantiality, according to Hegel, takes place in the state by the brutal bridling of the world spirit where not just individuals but whole peoples are sacrificed - toward freedom, i.e. its realization in the community of the ethos. The "trouble of the times" is a consequence of the separation between I and the world (Entzeiung) and stems from a reduced political reason which lacks the criterion of the ethical totality for political action and decision making. By the separation of the ethos this reason get routinized and political action is reduced to naked technique of winning and keeping political power. In the concluding segment of the paper the author points to some global consequences of the crisis of political decision making in the historical reality at the end of 20th century.

Drinkin’ and Carryin’ On in Search of Community

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry T. Watkins
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Friendship Networks ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Lesbian Community ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Private Homes ◽  
Gain Access

Before market forces created recognizable sites of gay and lesbian community, some queer Floridians leveraged their race and class privileges to create or gain access to spaces in order to find others like themselves. This chapter uses bars, “gay parties,” and friendship networks to show the ways that postwar mobility shaped queer socializing through complex negotiations of desire and access. In Tallahassee, the Cypress Lounge at the Floridan Hotel became an unofficial gay bar, while Florida’s powerbrokers schmoozed and facilitated connections to national identity-based rights discourses. Others used their private homes to host networks of gay and lesbian friends from around the panhandle. In Pensacola, Trader Jon’s and the Hi-Ho Five O’Clock Club were queered by sexually and gender non-conforming individuals.

scholarly journals Can Sustainable Consumption Trigger Political Activism? An Empirical Investigation of the Crowding-in Hypothesis

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9082
Author(s):  
Frédéric Vandermoere ◽  
Robbe Geerts ◽  
Raf Vanderstraeten
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Media Activism ◽  
Online Forms ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Political Actions

In this article, we address the question whether political activism can be triggered by sustainable consumption. Specific attention is given to the crowding-out and crowding-in hypotheses. The first hypothesis is driven by a conflict view as it assumes that sustainable consumerism displaces the willingness to act collectively. In contrast, the latter hypothesis—crowding-in—frames conscious consumption as a potential political act whereby individual sustainable consumption may trigger political acts such as signing a petition, demonstrating, and voting. To address this issue, German survey data were analyzed (n = 936). Our analysis appears to confirm the crowding-in hypothesis. However, the results of multiple logistic regression analyses also show that the relation between sustainable consumption and political activism depends on the type of political action. Particularly, sustainable consumption does not relate to traditional political actions such as voting, but it does relate positively to less conventional (e.g., attending a demonstration) and online forms of political engagement (e.g., social media activism). Our findings also indicate that the positive association between sustainable consumption and less conventional politics may be moderated by educational attainment, suggesting that it is weakest among less educated groups. The paper ends with the empirical and theoretical conclusions that can be drawn from this study, and indicates some directions for future research.

On Civil Disobedience in Recent American Democratic Thought

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Power
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
Nuremberg Trials ◽  
Fourth Wave

Theoretical discussions of civil disobedience on ethical and political grounds received special attention in this country during the Nuremberg trials, the security and loyalty controversies of the 1950's and the pre-arms control years of nuclear power. A fourth wave of interest formed after the early civil rights protests and a fifth is appearing to consider dissent from national policies on the Vietnam War. In this paper civil disobedience is viewed from a trough between the fourth and most recent wave. The phenomenon is interpreted with selected ideas from the study of political obligation and unconventional dissent. The essay first assesses recent American analysis of civil disobedience to determine what the criteria should be to distinguish it from other forms of political action and to discover its political ethics. Secondly, there is an attempt to answer the question: Is there any appreciable service that carefully defined civil disobedience might perform in American democratic thought? The complete enterprise is provoked by a need to examine new strategies for democratic citizenship in a time when the deficiencies of American political life are becoming known to increasing numbers and varieties of people instead of remaining the preserve of enlightened elites.

A Short Scale of Economic Conservatism

1997 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 1019-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Henningham
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Short Scale ◽  
Australian Sample ◽  
Social Conservatism ◽  
Item Scale

Previous measures of economic conservatism can be considered dated in the wake of the collapse of communist systems and the embrace of free market policies by social democrat political parties, arguably reflecting rejection of many left-Liberal positions. Testing of a traditionally worded 20-item scale of economic values on an Australian sample of 260 indicates poor reliability (alpha = .53), apparently because many items do not reflect contemporary ideological differences. Higher reliability (alpha = .65) is found in a two-factor eight-item scale involving attitudes to political action and social welfare. The short scale correlates significantly with other measures of conservatism (Pearson r with declared political leaning = .26, r with social conservatism .48).

The Politics of Presence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Personal Transformation ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Political Act ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Prison Populations

Pentecostal pastors and volunteers who work with prison populations tend to focus on individual salvation and personal transformation of inmates as opposed to participating in traditional political action aimed at reforming criminal justice institutions. Though the emphasis is on the individual inmate, pastors’ and volunteers’ choice to stand alongside inmates throughout the week and during times of crisis is a political act that has political ramifications. I observed Pentecostal pastors intervene on behalf of vulnerable inmates, but also on behalf of entire prisons during times of crisis and in one case they pressured government officials to improve conditions for inmates.

SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SUBJECTIVE WELL‐BEING

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Jakub J. Macewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Civil Liberty ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
State Of The Economy

One of the vital questions connected with the system transformation in Poland and other former Soviet Bloc countries is whether the overthrow of the communist system was caused by the poor state of their economies or rather people's struggle for their civil rights. However, the “either/or nature” of this question is disturbed by another possibility: it might have been a relatively good state of the economy which made the overthrow possible. Moreover, there is no doubt that the introduction of free market and democracy resulted in many positive changes in people's lives: from the increase in life expectancy and subjective well‐being to the growth of civil liberty. Yet, economic development and (more broadly) modernity also produce extensively described negative effects which, at certain point, seem to “neutralise” their positive ones. Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries seem to follow this path. Sistemos transformacija vidurio ir Rytų Europoje, ekonomikos plėtra ir subjektyvioji gerovė Santrauka Vienas svarbiausių klausimų, susijusių su sistemos transformacija Lenkijoje ir kitose buvusiose sovietinio bloko šalyse, yra toks – ar komunistinio režimo nuvertimas buvo sukeltas neturtingų valstybių ekonomikos, ar žmonių kovos dėl savo teisių? Kad ir kaip būtų, šio klausimo atsakymui „arba... arba“ trukdo kita galimybė: tai galėtų būti gera valstybė, kurios ekonomika sudarė palankias sąlygas nuversti minėtą režimą. Be to, nėra abejonių, kad laisvos rinkos ir demokratijos įvedimas sukėlė daug pozityvių pokyčių žmonių gyvenime – nuo didėjančių galimybių ir gerovės iki augančios pilietinės laisvės. Vis dėlto ekonomikos plėtra ir modernumas taip pat sukelia plačiai aprašytų negatyvių pasekmių, kurios tam tikrais atvejais naikina pozityviąsias. Lenkija ir kitos Vidurio bei Rytų Europos šalys eina šiuo keliu.

Why all Welfare States (Including Laissez-Faire Ones) Are Unreasonable

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald F. Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Laissez Faire

Liberal political theory is all too familiar with the divide between classical and welfare-state liberals. Classical liberals, as we all know, insist on the importance of small government, negative liberty, and private property. Welfare-state liberals, on the other hand, although they too stress civil rights, tend to be sympathetic to “positive liberty,” are for a much more expansive government, and are often ambivalent about private property. Although I do not go so far as to entirely deny the usefulness of this familiar distinction, I think in many ways it is misleading. In an important sense, most free-market liberals are also “welfare-state” liberals. I say this because the overwhelming number of liberals, of both the pro-market and the pro-government variety, entertain a welfarist conception of political economy. On this dominant welfarist view, the ultimate justification of the politico-economic order is that it promotes human welfare. Traditional “welfare-state liberals” such as Robert E. Goodin manifestly adopt this welfarist conception. But it is certainly not only interventionists such as Goodin who insist that advancing welfare is the overriding goal of normative political economy. J. R. McCulloch, one of the great nineteenth-century laissez-faire political economists, was adamant that “freedom is not, as some appear to think, the end of government: the advancement of public prosperity and happiness is its end.” To be sure, McCulloch would have disagreed with Goodin about the optimal welfare-maximizing economic policy: the welfarist ideal, he and his fellow classical political economists believed, would best be advanced by provision of a legal and institutional framework — most importantly, the laws of property, contract, and the criminal code — that allows individuals to pursue their own interests in the market and, by so doing, promote public welfare. In general, what might be called the “classical-liberal welfare state” claims to advance welfare by providing the framework for individuals to seek wealth for themselves, while welfarists such as Goodin insist that a market order is seriously flawed as a mechanism for advancing human welfare and, in addition, that government has the competency to “correct market failures” in the provision of welfare.

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