PLATO'S THEORY OF INCARCERATION

In addition to its many famous innovations in popular government, the Athenian democracy seems to have also experimented with another, more ambivalent political institution familiar to modern societies—penal incarceration. In recent years, there has been renewed debate over the precise role of imprisonment in Athens, as an increasing number of voices, including Marcus Folch in this volume, make the case that imprisonment was an important point of contact between criminal punishment and democratic politics and society in Athens.

Popular Government Without the Will of the People

Populism sees representative government as intrinsically elitist, preferring to think about democracy in terms of the will of the people, expressed through devices such as referendums. However, this view is not one that can be made sense of and seeking to pursue the will of the people is dangerous to democracy. Citizen engagement is important in a representative democracy, but this is best conceived on a model of civil society organizations undertaking practical public deliberation. A philosophical model of deliberation leading to choice is introduced, and the argument that such a theory is itself elitist is considered but found wanting.

The First Earl of Shaftesbury's Resolute Conscience and Aristocratic Constitutionalism

This article provides a reappraisal of the first earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83) and challenges his reputation as an unprincipled politician. Conversely, it is argued that Shaftesbury's opposition to both Cromwell during the Protectorate and Charles II in the Restoration was guided by a resolute ‘conscience’. While there was certainly elasticity in his conduct, Shaftesbury was very much the product of a political education framed during the Civil War and Commonwealth eras. The article explicitly demonstrates through an exposition of his activity and thought in the 1650s and 1670s that four guiding values remained consistent in his career. Both periods were shaped by concerns over political and religious tyranny by an overbearing executive and a threat to ‘lives, liberty, and property’ from the ruler, the church, and the army. Shaftesbury's significance lies in the aristocratic constitutionalism he believed offered a restraint to encroachment by the executive and the people in government. Relying upon long-established traditions that positioned the nobility as an independent bridle against arbitrary government, Shaftesbury suggested a forward-thinking vision of elite rule supported by the people. In clarifying Shaftesbury's values, the article rejects interpretations of him as a republican, Neo-Harringtonian, or a believer in popular government (democracy).

How to Read James Fitzjames Stephen: Technocracy and Pluralism in a Misunderstood Victorian

This paper offers a new reading of the political thought of the mid-Victorian jurist and intellectual James Fitzjames Stephen. Contrary to impressions of Stephen as a conservative or religious authoritarian, this article recognizes the liberal character of Stephen’s thought, and it argues that investigating Stephen’s liberalism holds lessons for us today about the structure of liberal theory. Stephen, the paper demonstrates, articulated robustly both technocratic and pluralistic visions of politics. Perhaps more stridently than any Victorian, he put forward an argument for the necessity and legitimacy of expert rule against claims for popular government. Yet he also insisted on the plurality of perspectives on public affairs and on the ineluctable conflict between them. Because both of these facets existed in his work, he fit within the liberal ranks, but he did not show how the two dimensions fit together. The tension that we discover from reading Stephen is, the article concludes, not peculiar to him, but a permanent feature of liberal theories, which always include both technocratic and pluralistic elements.

Freedom of Expression and Democracy

This chapter focuses on the relationship between freedom of expression and democracy from both a historical and a theoretical perspective. The term ‘freedom of expression’ includes free speech, freedom of the press, the right to petition government, and freedom of political association. Eighteenth-century proponents of popular government had long offered democratic justifications for freedom of expression. The chapter then demonstrates that freedom of political expression is a necessary component of democracy. It describes two core functions of such expression: an informing and a legitimating one. Finally, the chapter examines the concept of ‘democracy’, noting various ways in which democracies vary among themselves, as well as the implications of those variations for freedom of expression. Even before democratic forms of government took root in the modern world.

The Apology for Florence’s Great Council in Girolamo Savonarola’s Sermons

After the expulsion of Piero Medici and the withdrawal of French troops from Florence, the citizens of Florence embarked on reforming the state administration. One of the most important institutional transformations was the establishment of the Great Council, which was carried out with the support of the city prophet Girolamo Savonarola. The paper analyses the sermons of the Dominican monk, which were delivered in support of the popular government (represented by the Council) during the discussion of the drafts of the reform project, as well as during the functioning of the Consiglio Maggiore. Comparison of the sermons with the “Treatise on the Governance of Florence”, written at the end of the monk’s political career, allows us to find out in which issues his position remained unchanged and where a particular evolution of his views took place.

Conclusion

The referendum came onto the agenda in the UK in the final quarter of the nineteenth century, and it has never entirely disappeared from it, either as a proposition or a working device. Use of the referendum in the UK was conceived of and presented both as a natural extension of the principle of democracy that was then taking hold, and as a means of offsetting perceived defects with the representative variant of popular government that had developed. In particular, it was seen as a safeguard against the manipulative impact of parties that might lead the parliamentary system to serve the ends of factions within the elite above the people. It might enable the public to vote for a particular party with which they were broadly sympathetic without needing to endorse their entire programme; and would mean that a government could not implement measures of major significance to which a majority objected. It was largely envisaged as likely to have a conservative impact, creating a new and final means by which change might be blocked. Yet its appeal spread across the political spectrum; as did opposition to it....

The “Chicago Boys” Intellectual Transfer: a Gramscian Interpretation

In September 11, 1973, the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende died in a confrontation with the army, led by General Augusto Pinochet. After the coup, a great shift in social and economic policies occurred, dismantling all the measures taken by the popular government and by its moderate antecessors as well. Recognizing the Chicago Boys as the organic intellectuals of neoliberalism in Chile, we describe how they were a key element to transform Chilean society in the attempt to form a Historical Block after Salvador Allende’s overthrown. This Gramscian perspective allows us to consider not only the ideological, but also the role of class struggle.

The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO)

The summer and fall of 2006 saw a violent, protracted conflict in Oaxaca, Mexico between the state government and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, APPO). What began as a contentious labor negotiation between the local government and the teachers’ union soon developed into a popular protest and mobilization throughout the state, especially in the Valles Centrales region, home to the state capital. The governor’s repressive actions against critics and opponents of his administration led the APPO members to a consensus demanding his removal. The result was a government in paralysis, with none of the three constitutional branches able to exercise their normal authority or carry out their activities. The APPO achieved territorial control by the following means: with the erection of hundreds of barricades throughout the capital to protect it from sneak attacks by irregular units of the state police; with its occupation, operation, and diffusion of public and private media outlets; with a permanent mobilization of its members; and with the construction of a popular government, the Oaxaca Commune, to manage public affairs and services. This experience of popular autonomy involved the dismantling of the local system of domination and also of the authoritarian, clientelist, patrimonialist, and patriarchal relationships within the organizations of the APPO itself. It ended in violent repression.

COMPONENTS OF MODERN ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION IN THE THOUGHT OF AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI

Islamic civilization has been in ups and downs and with the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic awareness in Iran reached its peak and the Islamic world moved to awareness. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has proposed a new "Islamic Modern Civilization" for the development of Islamic civilization. In this article, the features of modern Islamic civilization are reflected in his thoughts and by a descriptive-analytical method, questions about modern Islamic civilization have been answered from his point of view, including what the Islamic civilization is and what its main characteristics are. The centrality of Qur'an rules, faith, knowledge, ethics, constant endeavor and popular government are the characteristics of the modern Islamic civilization from his point of view. Based on the results of this study, from Ayatollah Khamenei's perspective, the development and advancement of modern Islamic civilization requires collective effort and wisdom which arise in the shadow of ethics, work and effort, faith in God, rationality, academic ability, flourishing economy, the enjoyment of strong media and international relations