Radical Pessimism

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-136
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Extractive Industries ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Personal Interest ◽  
Political Imaginary ◽  
Extreme State

This chapter describes radical pessimism as a neoliberal democratic political affect that combines of radical worldviews with a belief that change is impossible. It begins with the question of how past and present forms of political violence have shaped Mayan conceptions about the limits of democracy and of their own political agency, leading many to “sell out” for personal interest. It documents how Sampedranos retain elements of radical political imaginary that predominated in the region in the 1970s, prior to the extreme state violence of the 1980s, but that routine acts of state violence targeted at social movements that informs engagements with hostile sovereign forces, including authoritarian political parties. The chapter also describes how these political imaginaries are being reconfigured through more recent forms of politics in defense of territory against extractive industries. The conclusion reflects on the possibility of a radical organization of pessimism.

The Consecration of Political Suffering: Martyrs, Heroes and Victims in Argentine Political Culture

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA SOLEDAD CATOGGIO
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
Political Imaginary

AbstractThis article addresses the various mechanisms by which the religious figure of the Christian martyr became a useful notion in Argentine political discourse. It argues that the process by which the idea of the ‘martyr’ was secularised and politicised was actually initiated by religious agents themselves. The analysis considers how commemoration initiatives devised by religious agents, social movements and political actors have brought ‘Catholic martyrs’ into the pantheon of national symbols. It also deals with the various semantic shifts seen in the public discourses of religious agents themselves, shifts that extend the boundaries of an eminently religious category by associating it with other figures in a more specifically political imaginary, such as that of the hero and the victim. The article shows how the political power of the religious figure of the martyr lay in the way various actors could use it to invoke the image of a legitimate and heroic victim of political violence. It thus allowed those actors to sidestep the vexed public question of whether those being commemorated had had any involvement in armed struggle.

Transnational Social Movements and Peaceful Change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Milcíades Peña
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Transnational Social Movements ◽  
Relational Perspective ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interactive Dynamic ◽  
Dominant Treatment

The chapter discusses the relationship between social movements and peaceful change. First, it reviews the way this relationship has been elaborated in IR constructivist and critical analyses, as part of transnational activist networks, global civil society, and transnational social movements, while considering the blind sides left by the dominant treatment of these entities as positive moral actors. Second, the chapter reviews insights from the revolution and political violence literature, a literature usually sidelined in IR debates about civil society, in order to cast a wider relational perspective on how social movements participate in, and are affected by, interactive dynamic processes that may escalate into violent outcomes at both local and international levels.

scholarly journals The Allegory of Political Violence in Sony Labou Tansi’s Life and a Half

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manizha Sepas
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
State Violence

An embodied reading of Sony Labou Tansi's absurdism which functions as a tool for discoursing colonisation, state violence and the hypersexual masculinity of power as symbolised through the metaphor of cannibalism.

scholarly journals Uruguay, 1968. Algunas líneas de análisis derivadas del estudio de la protesta estudiantil en un país periférico

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Vania Markarian
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The World ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cycles Of Protest

This paper – focused on a deep analysis of the student movement that occupied the streets of Montevideo in 1968 – aims at proposing some analytical lines to understand this and other contemporary cycles of protest in different places of the world. After locating these events in a wide geography characterized both by political acceleration and the dramatic display of cultural change, four relevant themes in the growing body of literature on the «global Sixties» are raised. First, it is addressed the relationship between social movements and groups or political parties in these «short cycles» of protest. Second, the idea that violence was rather a catalyzer of political innovation rather than the result of political polarization is proposed. Third, it breaks down the diversity of possible links between culture, in a broad sense, and the forms of political participation in youth mobilizations. Finally, it can be more rewarding to look at different scales of analysis of these processes, from the strictly national to the transnational circulation of ideas and people.

scholarly journals Political Parties and Participative Approaches to Democracy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiano Gianolla
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
Representative Model ◽  
The Relationship

Representative democracy is currenty facing strong social criticism for its incapacity to envolve people in a way that makes them part of the decision-making process. An existing gap between the representatives and the represented is hereby emphasized. In this space, the role of political parties is central in order to bridge society with institutions. How much are parties concerned about this issue? How and in which context do they interact more with their electorate and the wider society? Participatory democracy is emerging throughout the world in different forms and with different results, but the dominant pattern of democracy remains the liberal western democratic paradigm in which people can contribute barely through electing candidates. In order to achieve what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls ‘democratisation of democracy’ the role of political parties is therefore fundamental in particular to achieve a more participative democracy within the representative model. This article approaches this theme through a bibliographic review comparing social movements and political parties with a focus on the innovation of the Five Star Movement in Italy. Finally, it provides a reading of the relationship between political parties andparticipation, including good practice and perspectives.KEYWORDS: Participation, political parties, social movements, political movements, representative democracy, participatory democracy.

Research on Social Movements and Political Violence

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donatella della Porta
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Violence

The Concept of Social Movement

1992 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Diani
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Cultural Conflicts ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Recent Developments

Recent developments in social movement research have evidenced a greater underlying consensus in the field than one might have assumed. Efforts have been made to bridge different perspectives and merge them into a new synthesis. Yet, comparative discussion of the concept of ‘social movement’ has been largely neglected so far. This article reviews and contrasts systematically the definitions of ‘social movement’ formulated by some of the most influential authors in the field. A substantial convergence may be detected between otherwise very different approaches on three points at least. Social movements are defined as networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities. It is argued that the concept is sharp enough a) to differentiate social movements from related concepts such as interest groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions; b) to identify a specific area of investigation and theorising for social movement research.

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