Remade in China: Rule of Law, Democracy, and the Chinese 12 Angry Men

Against the background of the growing effort in the Xi Jinping era to sinicize democracy and rule of law, much critical attention has surrounded Chinese models of governance variously conceived as “humane authority” and “political meritocracy.” What is missing from the literature on the export of the so-called “Chinese solution,” however, is the consideration of popular cultural products. This article takes as its case study the state-sponsored film 12 Citizens, the 2014 remake of the classic 12 Angry Men, most famously known in its 1957 version directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda. As there is no jury system in China, 12 Citizens instead presents the scenario as a law school mock trial on Anglo-American law, with crucial elements indigenized to the local setting. In one masterly maneuver after another, the remake overturns the democratic tenor of the original. Yet as a metanarrative about adaptation, the film reveals ambivalent attitudes not only toward the jury system and the West but also toward adaptation itself, open to an alternative interpretation in which the figure of the citizen, as a member of a political community actively engaged in public matters, precisely takes center stage. This ambivalence challenges the very concept of “Chinese characteristics.”

How Is Collective Identity Possible in Democracies? Political Integration and the Leitkultur Debate in Germany

The quest for a common collective identity has become a challenge for modern democracy: Liberal demands for greater inclusion and individual freedom, aspirations for a strong and solidaric political community, as well as nationalist or right-wing populist calls for exclusion and a preservation of hegemonic national identities are creating tensions that cannot be overlooked. This article therefore formulates the central question of how collective identity can be possible in a liberal democracy. Based on a case study on Germany, it will therefore be examined whether Leitkultur as a model of political integration can serve in generating a functional democratic collective identity. The necessary benchmarks guiding the analysis will be defined beforehand from a systems-theoretical perspective, balancing inclusion and exclusion within three crucial dimensions: normative basics, historic continuity, and affirmative bindings. The results show that a static definition of a German Leitkultur would in the long run neither achieve functional inclusion nor be able to generate the necessary cohesion of a political community, especially regarding the second and third identity dimensions.

Demagogues and Demagoguery in Hellenistic Greece

This paper introduces scholars of Greek political thought to the continued existence of the phenomenon of demagoguery, or ‘(mis-)leadership of the people’, in the Hellenistic period. After summarizing Classical elite discourse about demagoguery, I explore three areas in which political leaders continued to run afoul of elite norms in Hellenistic democratic poleis: 1) political persecution of the wealthier members of a political community; 2) ‘pandering to’ the people in a way considered infra dignitatem; and 3) stoking bellicosity among the common people. I show that considerable continuities link the Classical and Hellenistic periods and that demagoguery should be approached as a potential window onto ‘popular culture’ in Greek antiquity.

The Legal Treatment of Religious Dissent in Western Europe: A Comparative View

This article examines the legal treatment of religious dissent from a comparative perspective, by focusing on the legal evolution from intolerance to toleration, and from toleration to emancipation in France, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom. Historically, in Europe, only people professing the official religion were regarded as full members of the political community. Those who professed another religion were expelled, persecuted, discriminated or – in the best cases – merely tolerated. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in different degrees and forms according to the country concerned, European states started separating citizenship from religious belonging – a fundamental step in the process of secularisation of law in Europe. This development led to the emancipation of religious dissenters through the recognition of both the principle of equality of all citizens before the law, regardless of one's religion or belief, and the individual right to freedom of religion and belief.

Management of the Political Enterprise in the Service of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Cosmopolitan Society

This chapter proposes to analyze the theory of the political enterprise with focus on the concept of ethical values-driven management in the contemporary debate on the politization of business in service of sustainability in cosmopolitan society. By service of cosmopolitan society of the political enterprise the chapter investigates the idea of the political enterprise as being a responsible political, ethical, and social agent with focus on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are required to justify its mission and role in society as a political actor that makes a different for its social and political community. The company is embedded in a social and political order with a diversity of political values, and the discussion about the meaning of the concept of values-driven management is therefore fundamental if one is to analyze the concept of the political enterprise in service of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Restart tourism | build the future

PurposeThis viewpoint aims to explore the question: How can we restart and monitor the path towards the tourism of the future?Design/methodology/approachThis paper identifies the progress made at scientific, institutional, political and technological levels, and how it is possible to foresee that we will enter in a new era of tourism indicators.FindingsA significant body of literature clearly demonstrates that tourism cannot be viewed simply from an economic point of view as it has a great influence on sociocultural and environmental dimensions. The impact of tourism and how to ensure its long-term success has been invoked for the last few decades, leading to the direct consideration of sustainability indicators in a wide array of scientific publications. However, despite significant advances, the lack of funding, lack of support or interest from the political community, bureaucracies or lack of methodological guidance and of technical skills along the entire value chain pose clear challenges to the development and adoption of wide data systems to support sustainable tourism policies.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light on the Portuguese position regarding the recovery of the tourism sector in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also highlights the commitment to knowledge and monitoring of sustainability in tourism, articulated at international level, and how this is essential in order to make progress and to overcome the challenges facing the sector. At the same time, it demonstrates how fundamental it is to identify solutions to boost the potential of tourism as an economic, social, environmental and cultural phenomenon.

EXTERNAL AND DOMESTIC CHALLENGES FOR CZECH REPUBLIC

The article attempts to outline the main challenges faced by the Czech Republic in domestic and foreign policy. The author notes that the main threat within the country lies in the propensity of some part of the establishment to abuse of office. However, there are effective tools to counter these trends in the form of a developed system of democratic institutions and civil society. In foreign policy, a value-based approach has recently become widespread, which often damages the interests of the state and distorts the real picture of dangers. The author notes that the local political community is in a state of «Czech-Czech war», implying a confrontation between two groups of elites: pragmatists-technocrats and human rights defenders-liberals. These trends have become especially widespread since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, which has accelerated the development of international processes.

The Dream of a Republic

Cicero is one of the most influential political philosophers in history. This chapter illustrates how little scholars have explored Cicero’s role in shaping intellectual developments after the Renaissance. It argues that the height of Cicero’s posthumous influence may be the early modern period, in which liberalism first emerges as a coherent doctrine. It sets up the central theoretical problem: how can one reconcile a commitment to universal moral laws with the belief that the people are the ultimate authority in their political community, and what is the place of liberty in a society grounded in those two commitments? It suggests that Cicero’s ideas played a central role in shaping the development of a tradition focused on these questions. Finally, this chapter outlines the rest of the book.