Escalations: Theorizing sudden accelerating change

In this article, we explore what happens in qualitative terms when a social phenomenon accelerates in quantitative terms. We do so by introducing escalation as an analytical concept through which to understand sudden processes of accelerating change. Using the Danish cartoon controversy as the ethnographic prism, we show that accelerating dynamics may not only imply the quantitative growth of “things” but also that the qualitative scales underpinning and measuring change are themselves changed in the process of growth. We take escalation to refer to this “change of change” within processes of sudden accelerating growth. By introducing a new theoretical concept, we aim to contribute to discussions of social and cultural change in anthropology and elsewhere and to enable and encourage future comparison between different ethnographies of accelerating change.

The Danish Cartoon Controversy and the Challenges of Multicultural Politics

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The Danish Cartoon Controversy and the Challenges of Multicultural Politics

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The Danish Cartoon Controversy and the Challenges of Multicultural Politics

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The Danish Cartoon Controversy and the Challenges of Multicultural Politics

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The Danish Cartoon Controversy and the Challenges of Multicultural Politics

Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons That Shook the World offers an interesting political science account of the Danish cartoon controversy and of a broader set of tensions between multiculturalism, civility, and freedom of expression. The book is also a fascinating case study of how political science can itself become the object of dispute, due to Yale University Press' decision to publish the book without any reproductions of the controversial cartoons.We have thus asked a range of political scientists to comment on the Danish cartoon imbroglio, the book's analysis of it, and the controversy over the book itself.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The use and abuse of ‘universal values’ in the Danish cartoon controversy

During the Danish cartoon controversy, appeals to universal liberal values were often made in ways that marginalized Muslims. An analysis of the controversy reveals that referring to ‘universal values’ can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish their own culture’s embodiment of these values from the more abstract ideas. The article suggests that the solution to this problem is not to discard liberal principles but rather to see them in a more deliberative democratic way. This means that we should move from focusing on citizens merely as subjects of law and right holders to seeing them as co-authors of shared legal and moral norms. A main shortcoming of the way in which dominant actors in Denmark responded to the cartoons was exactly that they failed to see the Muslim minority as capable of participating in interpreting and giving shared norms. To avoid self-contradiction, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them. Newcomers ought to be able to contribute their specific perspectives in this process of democratically reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms, and thereby make them fit better to those to whom they apply, as well as rendering them theirs.