The State of the Political

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Political Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Franz Neumann

This book offers a broad-ranging re-interpretation of the understanding of politics and the state in the writings of three major German thinkers, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann. It rejects the typical separation of these writers on the basis of their allegedly incompatible ideological positions, and suggests instead that once properly located in their historical context, the tendentious character of these interpretative boundaries becomes clear. The book interprets the conceptions of politics and the state in the writings of these three thinkers by means of an investigation of their adaptation and modification of particular German traditions of thinking about the state, or Staatsrechtslehre. Indeed, when the theoretical considerations of this state-legal theory are combined with their contemporary political criticism, a richer and more deeply textured account of the issues that engaged the attention of Weber, Schmitt and Neumann is possible. Thus, the broad range of subjects discussed in this book include parliamentarism and democracy in Germany, academic freedom and political economy, political representation, cultural criticism and patriotism, and the relationship between rationality, law, sovereignty and the constitution. The study attempts to restore a sense of proportion to the discussion of the three authors' writings, focusing on the extensive ideas that they shared rather than insisting on their necessary ideological separation. It is a detailed re-appraisal of a crucial moment in modern intellectual history, and highlights the profound importance of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann for the history of European ideas.

Origins of Progressivism

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Emerson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
German State ◽  
Normative Concept

This chapter describes German state theory in the nineteenth and twentieth century. It describes this tradition in order to clarify the relevance of German ideas to the American context. American political scientists and legal scholars frequently rely on German thinkers such as Max Weber and Carl Schmitt to understand the state. But these divergent assessments lack a grounding in the longer trajectory and the institutional dilemmas of German legal theory. The chapter provides that broader context and directs readers’ attention to the most promising strand of German thought: the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel would have formative significance for the Progressive thinkers who developed the American administrative state. Hegel understood the state’s purpose to be the advancement of freedom. The chapter contextualizes this idea and shows its influence throughout the nineteenth century, in the Rechtsstaat theories of Robert von Mohl, Lorenz von Stein, and Rudolf von Gneist. It then shows how this normative concept of the state was emptied out with the turn to legal positivism at the end of the century. Weber’s formal-rational conception of bureaucracy then arrived at a particularly unstable moment in German constitutional history, in the transition from monarchy to democracy. Weber’s bifurcated conception of legal and charismatic authority paved the way for Schmitt’s proto-totalitarian theory of the state. The chapter concludes by showing how German theorists in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Jürgen Habermas, continued to rely on Weber’s instrumental conception of bureaucracy.

Standardized Education With Free Textbooks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenia Roldán Vera ◽  
Susana Quintanilla
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Previous History ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
The State ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
History Of

The Mexican policy of state provision of standardized textbooks for all was instituted in 1959 and still ongoing. This is an overview of the previous history of state intervention in the production and distribution of school textbooks, an examination of the particular circumstances in which the 1959 policy was figured and implemented, and a description of the characteristics of the different generations of textbooks that have since been published, corresponding with several educational reforms. The arguments for and against standardized textbooks mobilized by different sectors of society throughout sixty years are discussed in their historical context. Far from this being a debate about the authoritarian intervention of the state in education, issues of social equality and teaching quality have been central.

Toward a Global Intellectual History of “Minority”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-324
Author(s):  
Roy Bar Sadeh ◽  
Lotte Houwink ten Cate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Abstract The term minority is today applied to describe beleaguered, persecuted, and exiled people whose subordination is preserved or merely “tolerated” by majoritarian politics inherent to modern states. As this introduction indicates, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries minority politics became a rubric for sociopolitical emancipation, providing a framework for intellectuals in colonized Asia and Africa to question European powers' treatment of marginalized communities. Bar Sadeh and Houwink ten Cate contend that “minority” has unique value as an instrument for historical analysis that is restricted neither solely to minority-majority relations nor to debates about (political) representation. Instead, the authors propose a global intellectual history of “minority” as a concept and experience, which is explored in the essays compiled in this special section, “Minority Questions.” By examining the diverse genealogies of the concept of minority, the essays that follow provide a valuable contribution to efforts to redress historical wrongs, even as they offer a range of explanations for the enduring legacy and power of this multifaceted concept.

Of mountains, lakes and essences: John Teasdale and the transmission of mindfulness

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Drage
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Therapy ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective

In this article I examine an important episode in the growth of ‘mindfulness’ as a biomedical modality in Britain: the formation and establishment of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) by John Teasdale and his colleagues Mark Williams and Zindel Segal. My study, focusing on Teasdale’s contribution, combines ethnographic, oral historical and archival research to understand how mindfulness was disseminated or, to use a term sometimes used by mindfulness practitioners themselves, ‘transmitted’. Drawing on theoretical support from Max Weber, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, I argue that transmission had a very specific form within the Buddhistic milieu that Teasdale occupied and within which he developed MBCT. To ‘transmit’ mindfulness was to transmit an experiential essence; a type of subjectivity that was seen as perennial, universal and radically distinct from its historical context. In tracing the recurring metaphysical, metaphorical and visual tropes of mindfulness and its transmission, I attempt to understand how Teasdale was embedded in both local and global networks of discourse and practice, and how his life and work contributed and depended upon an assemblage whose elements (institutional, technical, conceptual, textual) straddled empiricist psychology and religious mysticism. I also examine how authority, experience and knowledge were closely interwoven in the birth of British mindfulness, coming together to form an affectively compelling ‘diagram’ that shaped the way mindfulness was practiced and disseminated. In doing so, I aim to open up the possibility of studying the history of the human sciences from a new perspective: one which places an emphasis on the emotional impetus generated by metaphysical assumptions.

scholarly journals Some aspects of city archaeology in historical context (on the example of Prymorskyj Boulevard in Odesa)

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Svitlana Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Cultural Layer ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
History Of Construction ◽  
Stratigraphic Position ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The study on archaeological sites has some peculiarities when undertaken inside the territories of modern cities. And the reason behind it is not only the usual situation when parts of a site are covered by present-day constructions or cut by communication trenches. Sometimes a stratigraphic position and/or a level of recovery for ancient artefacts are blurred by inherent ambiguity. This is exactly the case, which can be traced for the settlement of ancient times on the Primorsky Boulevard of Odessa. The variability of the level of occurrence of the cultural layer and the virgin soil can be explained by referring to historical documentation. During the design and preparation of the territory for the landing of trees and construction, preparatory work was carried out. The area was cleared and leveled down. In addition, one should keep in mind the relief of the terrain, the presence of slopes, the elevation drop, the leveling of which led to the present ambiguous stratigraphic situation. The cultural layer was also damaged when some soil was withdrawn from its original position from the territory of the former military barracks, which were located here at the beginning of the XIX century in order to strengthen the slopes of the boulevard. These works are recorded in archival data stored in the State Archive of Odessa region. The construction of numerous communications also contributed to the inevitable alterations in the state of the settlement's preservation. Given the available historical information, it is possible that individual archaeological sites can be discovered during the reconstruction of existing buildings located on Primorsky Boulevard. The history of construction and subsequent re-building on the Primorsky Boulevard is linked with the material remains that are stored underground. Consideration of this aspect provides the necessary information on the identification of objects that can be found in archaeological sites situated underneath the modern buildings. There is an obvious and urgent necessity of archaeological supervision for all types of reconstruction or building works, in accordance with existing legislation. This conclusion is relevant not only to the territory of the ancient settlement, but also to its surveillance zone. The construction works should be suspended until the final archaeological research, if archaeological sites would be identified. Key words: Classical age, city archaeology, cultural layer, Prymorskyj Boulevard.

scholarly journals IMPERIAL AND SOVIET DIMENSIONS OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ISSUE IN O. LOTOTSKY’S JOURNALISM

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Galina Mykhailenko
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Independent State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
National Issue

This paper aims at studying O. Lototsky’s journalistic works during the revolutions of 1905-1907, 1917-1921 and the emigration of 1920-1930. The main focus is on the analysis of the position of Ukrainian lands in the imperial era and the Soviet period, as well as the vision of key problems and political prospects proposed in the articles of O. Lototsky. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. Both general scientific and special-historical methods are used in the study, namely: historical and comparative, problematic, research tools of the history of ideas (intellectual history) and biographistics. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by its focus on the analysis of the content of Lototsky’s journalistic works in the context of opportunities to solve the Ukrainian national issue in the conditions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Conclusions. O. Lototsky’s creative legacy contains a significant amount of journalistic material. Their topics are diverse: from reviews of the economic situation of Ukrainian lands to the analysis of the state of educational institutions in the Russian Empire and the problems of the clergy. Considerable attention in these materials is devoted to the Ukrainian national issue. Due to O. Lototsky’s active social activity from 1906 to 1917, the topics of his essays frequently intertwined with the problems in which he was directly involved (for example, the status of the Ukrainian language and the abolition of bans on its use). The position of the Ukrainian lands as part of the Russian Empire and other states in the specified period was of his particular concern. During the emigrant era, the publicist continued to express his vision of the situation of Ukrainian territories within the USSR. The leading idea expressed in most of O. Lototsky’s materials of that period was that the state policy of both the Russian Empire and the USSR did not provide for the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, let alone support for Ukrainian culture. Given the historical experiences of the Ukrainian lands, O. Lototsky in the 1920s and 1930s was an active supporter of the creation of an independent state. O. Lototsky’s diverse creative legacy, his active social and political activities leave many more aspects for further elaboration, analysis, and determination of the significance of his heritage in the intellectual history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian movement.

The Remnants of the Rechtsstaat

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Meierhenrich
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Public Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich

This book provides an intellectual history of Ernst Fraenkel’s classic The Dual State (1941), one of the most erudite books on the theory of dictatorship ever written. Fraenkel’s was the first comprehensive analysis of the rise and nature of National Socialism, and the only such analysis written from within Hitler’s Germany. His sophisticated––not to mention courageous––analysis amounted to an ethnography of Nazi law. Because of its clandestine origins, The Dual State has been hailed as the ultimate piece of intellectual resistance to the racial regime. This book brings Fraenkel’s innovative concept of “the dual state” back in, restoring it to its rightful place in the annals of public law scholarship. Uniquely blending insights from legal theory and legal history, it tells in an accessible manner the truly suspenseful gestation of Fraenkel’s ethnography of law inside the belly of the behemoth. But this is also a book about the ordering presence of institutions more generally. In addition to upending conventional wisdom about the law of the “Third Reich,” it explores the legal origins of dictatorship elsewhere, then and now. It theorizes the idea of an authoritarian rule of law, a cutting edge topic in law-and-society scholarship, and thus also speaks to the topic of democratic backsliding in the twenty-first century.

Carl Schmitt, Nomos of the Earth, and the Question of Historic Title in International Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Western Law ◽  
Raymond Aron

Abstract The Western international law of territory starts from a standpoint of the priority of the State over its population. The latter is merely an object of the ownership of the State. Title to territory rests on dominant evidence of State activity. The activity of so-called private individuals or economic activity of peoples do not count towards title to territory in the case law of international tribunals. This article contests the foundations of such a perspective. The so-called Western law of territory was devised by Western States to divide up among themselves the territory of non-Western ‘non-peoples’, culminating in the racist Island of Palmas Arbitration. Carl Schmitt provides the makings of an alternative history of the law of territory. It is, and should be, the law of the homelands of peoples, historically located on particular spaces. Peoples precede States, which are merely institutions used by Peoples to protect and administer their homelands. Whatever the difficulties of locating the homelands to which Peoples belong, escape into the so-called Western law of territory as a way to ‘Peace through the Rule of Law’ is an illusion – described contemptuously by the political theorist Raymond Aron as a Law of empty spaces. Without justice, there is no law.

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