The Figurative Foundations of Rousseau's Politics

Rousseau claims that the lawgiver must “persuade without convincing,” binding this legislative communication to the “first language,” which would, Rousseau writes, “persuade without convincing, and depict without arguing.” Drawing on a wide range of contextual sources, I show that this first language of Rousseau's is figurative, imagistic, and modeled on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which William Warburton claimed were “the uniform voice of nature” in his Divine Legation of Moses. More importantly, I demonstrate that Rousseau was himself using this lost ancient language to provide a figuration of his own: the “illusory image” of natural man. Through the Second Discourse, men could be persuaded that they were by nature free, preparing the way for a social contract in which they could legitimately give themselves law. This is an image that I argue has been effectively persuasive up to the present day—and our politics, like Rousseau's, thus seemingly rests on figurative foundations.

The Failure on Our Governance: Reaksi Masyarakat Sipil terhadap Kebijakan Publik di Masa Pandemi

Tulisan ini berusaha memberikan elaborasi mengenai faktor-faktor apa saja yang berperan dalam kegagalan pemerintah atas kebijakannya di masa pandemi hingga memunculkan reaksi dari masyarakat sipil. Mulai dari minimnya preparedness, perbedaan sense of urgency, broken linkage, hingga rendahnya sense of belonging menjadi bahasan yang disajikan secara lebih lanjut dalam tulisan ini. Bagaimana pemerintah akhirnya mengakomodasi hadirnya komunitas sebagai bentuk resistensi yang mewujudkan terciptanya self-governing community. Yang mana keberadaannya juga mendorong berjalannya suatu demokratisasi. Melihat bahwa pergerakan dan polarisasi perlawanan sipil yang semakin tumbuh menjamur sebagai bentuk gerak komunal di masa pandemi. Indonesia menjadi salah satu negara yang turut meningkatkan resistensi. Melalui realita serta sumber-sumber sekunder, tulisan ini menjelaskan apa yang menyebabkan pemerintah gagap dalam penanganan pandemi hingga memicu kemunculan masyarakat sipil. Hingga akhirnya, civil society menjadi solusi (mobilizing for action) dalam tata kelola pemerintahan. Kata kunci: civil society, broken linkage, network governance, self-governing community, civil resistance, social contract

PENCABUTAN HAK POLITIK TERPIDANA KORUPSI DALAM PERSPEKTIF SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY

This research aim is to provide a theoretical basis to permanently remove the political rights of a former prisoners of corruption as an alternative to achieve the purpose of criminal law. This normative research uses conceptual, statute and philosophical approach method. This research result indicate that based on the social contract theory, corruption is a criminal act which has injured the volonte generale and in this regard, a new concept is offered. The new concept is permanent revocation of political rights for a former coruption convicts that in line with peines infarmantes principle but does not apply automatically and must go through a court decision and be apllied for life (restitutio in integrum).