Disabling the Body Politic

The metaphor of the 'body politic' is an apparently optimistic one, as it is supposed to signal the relationality and connectedness of all members of the whole. This paper argues that the metaphor does not deliver on its potential because it associates illness and disability with lack of quality of life. I argue that the embodied experience of chronic illness or disability can inform political virtues that would be salutary for a body politic confronting a health-based crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and which challenge the assumptions of the body politic as traditionally constituted. I begin by drawing on scholarly treatments of the body politic to demonstrate that the body has consistently been idealized as able-bodied, and illness and disability are framed as inconsistent with quality of life or the functioning of the whole. In part two of the article, I draw upon Eli Clare's autoethnographic reflection entitled The Mountain as a starting point for re-imagining the body politic as disabled or chronically ill. I propose two political virtues that might be drawn from such a re-imagining: reflexivity and the recognition of limits. In part three, I argue that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which disability and chronic illness are foregrounded as important political issues, disabled and chronically ill people offer key insights, advocating a politics of relationality that has its starting point in their own disabled or chronically ill bodies.

POLITICS AND POWER IN MALTESE PROVERBS AND IDIOMS / IL-POLITIKA U L-POTER FIL-PROVERBJI U L-IDJOMI MALTIN

Given its centuries-old origins and the inimitable mix of Semitic and Latinized vocabulary, the Maltese language benefits from a massive repertoire of proverbs and idioms that interpret life realities from the perspective of the common folks. The scope of this paper is to decipher a number of Maltese proverbs and idioms that encompass elements of political power and control. Each selected expression is probed in terms of political theory and contextualized from a sociological and anthropological standpoint. Such an analysis provides a cornucopia of diachronic and synchronic insights on how the Maltese perceive power and manipulation, judge the elites and the privileged, assess the art of politics and treat patronage and clientelism. “The wit of one and the wisdom of many” has organically led them to affirm their conviction that power manipulation, greed and elite collegiality, distortion of political virtues and exploitation of power games to the leverage of both the disadvantaged and the privileged are universal realities. In other words, these phenomena involving power and politics exist independently of the locals’ perceptions or interpretations. Bħala lingwa millenarja b’influwenzi mill-ilsna semitiċi u Latini, il-Malti għandu repertorju għani ta’ proverbji u idjomi li jinterpretaw ir-realtajiet tal-ħajja minn għajnejn il-popolin. L-iskop ta’ din ir-riċerka huwa li janalizza għadd minn dawn il-proverbji u idjomi li jinkorporaw aspetti marbutin mal-politika, il-poter u l-kontroll tal-massa mill-elit. Kull proverbju magħżul huwa diskuss fil-qafas tat-teorija politika u kuntestwalizzat mil-lat soċjoloġiku u antropoloġiku. Din l-analiżi ssawwar riflessjonijiet dijakroniċi u sinkroniċi ta’ kif il-Maltin jaħsbuha dwar il-poter u l-manipulazzjoni tal-massa, kif jiġġudikaw l-elit u l-klassi pprivileġġjata, kif jassessjaw l-arti politika u kif jitrattaw il-patrunaġġ u l-klijentaliżmu. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0783/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Political meritocracy versus ethical democracy: The Confucian political ideal revisited

Counter to ‘political meritocracy’, the goal of this article is to present a different approach to incorporating the Confucian political ideal into an ethical modification of liberal democracy, namely ‘ethical democracy’, encouraged by Mou Zongsan. In Mou’s words, ethical democracy arises from a synthesis of ‘the way of politics’ related to liberal democracy and ‘the way of governance’ underlining ‘humane government’. Rather than restricting his focus to a process of selecting the virtuous leaders, Mou’s project, as I hope to show, has the deeper purpose of resting the basis of liberal democracy on a set of political virtues rooted in ‘humane government’. Having given a detailed analysis of Confucian political virtues in terms of the purpose of government and the limits on the abuse of power, I intend to conclude this article by indicating Mou’s pioneering contributions to the recent development of Confucian democratic theory in opposition to Confucian meritocratic discourse.

Afinal, Quais Instituições Importam? Equilíbrios Políticos, Concentração e Dispersão de Poder e Decisões

Institutions, was the answer presented by the positive theory, in the last three decades to explain the production of political equilibria. However, the following question is inevitable: Which institutional setting is most apt to produce stable political order and balance? Concentrated power based on the sovereign’s political virtues? Government divided into veto points that neutralize each other? This article revisits the literature that examines the effects produced by different institutional designs on stability and polyarchic performance, showing that there is no univocal and consensual connection between institutional configuration and generated results.

பூத்தான் நாட்டின் அரசியலில் வினைத்தூய்மை மற்றும் வினைத்திட்பக் கொள்கைகளும் மகாபாரதக் கதைகளின் தொடர்பியலும் [BHUTAN NADDIN ARASIYALIL VINAITTUUIMAI MADRUM VINAITTHIDPAK KOLKAIKALUM MAGABARATAK KATAIKALIN THODAIPIYALUM] APPLICATION OF ‘VINAITHUIMAI’ AND VINAITHITPAM’ THEORY IN BHUTAN’S POLITICAL VIRTUES AND ITS RELEVANCE WITH MAHABARATHA EPIC STORIES

இவ்வாய்வில் திருக்குறளின் வினைத்தூய்மை மற்றும் வினைத்திட்பக் கோட்பாடுகளை அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்டு இராஜகோபாலாச்சாரி எழுதிய 31 மகாபாரதக் கிளைக் கதைகள் ஆராயப்பட்டுள்ளன. இவ்வாய்வில் பூத்தான் நாட்டு அரசியல் சூழல்களை வினைத்தூய்மை மற்றும் வினைத்திட்பக் கோட்பாடுகளைக் கொண்டு ஆராயப்பட்டுத் தரவுகள் பகுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன. பூத்தான் நாட்டு அரசியல் அமலாக்கங்களையும் மகாபாரதக் கதைகளையும் வினைத்தூய்மை மற்றும் வினைத்திட்பக் கோட்பாடுகளின் கூறுகளின் வாயிலாக ஒப்பிடப்பட்டுத் தரவுகள் கலந்துரையாடப்பட்டுள்ளன. இவ்வாய்வு வாயிலாக வினைத்தூய்மை மற்றும் வினைத்திட்பக் கோட்பாடுகளைக் கொண்டு ஒரு நாட்டின் நடப்பு அரசியல் அமலாக்கங்களையும் கொள்கைகளையும் ஆராய முடியும் எனக் கண்டறியப்பட்டுள்ளது. (This research is aimed to study the influences of ‘Vinaithuimai’ and ‘Vinaithitpam’ theories in 31 Mahabharata epic stories written by Chakravarty Rajagopalacari. The research shows ‘Vinaithuimai’ and ‘Vinaithitpam’ theories can be applied to study Bhutan’s political policies and practices as well as to study and discuss Mahabharatha epic stories in the context of political practices. Hence, this research finds that the ‘Vinaithuimai’ and ‘Vinaithitpam’ theories can be used to study a country’s current political virtues and its conduct.)

LYING AND HYPOCRISY IN MORALITY AND POLITICS

Hypocrisy is necessary in politics, especially in democracies, but whilehypocrisy can facilitate democratic cooperation, lying tends to undermine it. Thereare two basic alternative possibilities for how to think about political ethics. Thefirst begins with universal moral principles that are then applied to politics as wellas to other areas of life. In the second approach, instead, each activity or type ofrelationship has its own moral requirements. What is it about politics that makeshypocrisy and lying either morally legitimate or morally illegitimate? For the firstapproach, lying and hypocrisy are vices, whereas for the second, they may beconsidered as virtuous under certain circumstances. Hypocrisy is necessarybecause political relationships are relationships of dependence among peoplewhose interests do not exactly coincide. To secure supporters and coalition partnersrequires a certain amount of pretense. The case of lying, however, is quite differentdue to three additional characteristics of political relationships: cooperation overtime requires trust; accountability requires transparency; and consensus requiresa shared sense of reality. Lying undermines all three. Thus, truthfulness is amongthe political virtues even if exceptions sometimes must be made. Today, “post-truth”politics (“New Lying”), threatens to create a dangerous indifference to the truth anda cynical, wholesale acceptance of political lying.

Aristotle’s realist regime theory

The ambition of this article is threefold. First, it is to offer a realist reading of Aristotle’s regime theory as it is laid out mostly in Books IV–VI of his Politics. The author argues that Aristotle’s regime theory has three fundamentally realist claims about the workings of politics: first, the search for a perfect regime is not the only legitimate subject of political theory; second, every regime is built on a delicate balance of a particular understanding of political justice, a variety of sociological factors and the institutional design and political virtues of its politicians; third, there are almost as many different regimes as polities, and although they can be grouped into major regime types, there are many sub-types and mixed and transitory regimes. Second, the article argues that modern democratic theories have an unacceptable ‘moralistic bias’ from a realist point of view. Third, that a neo-Aristotelian regime theory can offer an attractive realist alternative to the predominant contemporary understandings of political regimes.