The end of global pluralism?

The liberal international order is a fragmented institutional complex, comprising often disparate elements. One of these is a distinctive institutional approach to the global organization of cultural difference. This approach combines universal Westphalian sovereignty (and the pluralist interstate order it facilitates) with international human rights norms that seek to protect the cultural freedoms of individuals. I term this institutional amalgam “global pluralism”. Like many elements of the liberal order, such pluralism is now under challenge, confronted by resurgent ethno-nationalism, politicized religion, and civilizational chauvinism. The key question is whether global pluralism has the adaptive capacities to withstand such challenges. This article develops a theoretical framework for comprehending these institutional capacities. Conceiving global pluralism as a “diversity regime,” I argue that such regimes always rest on social “recognition contracts,” and that these give them certain structural characteristics: configurations of political authority and modes of cultural recognition. Focusing on these characteristics, I compare global pluralism with past Western and non-Western diversity regimes, and clarify the adaptive strengths and weaknesses of different institutional forms. This contractual-structural analysis exposes the historical uniqueness of global pluralism but also its structural vulnerabilities. While global pluralism has distinct advantages over past diversity regimes—principally, that it does not itself generate unstable cultural cleavages and hierarchies—it requires complex forms of social contracting to sustain, and its individualist mode of recognition struggles to accommodate collectivist cultural claims. Such contracting is essential, however, if global pluralism is to withstand current challenges, all of which involve collectivist claims.

Youth, Social Contracting and the Postcolony

Social contracts are concerned with the legitimacy of the state over the individual. The social contract offers mutual benefit and reciprocal obligation and is intrinsic to liberalism’s assertion that freedom is normative and encroaching on freedom requires justification. The social contract is both a philosophical idea and a toolkit for defusing conflict and tying participants to core liberal values. Talk of new social contracts, including intergenerational contracts, focus on maintaining a peaceful status quo, not transcending it. For the Global South in general, and youth in particular, the experience is more contract and less social. There seems little opportunity for southern youth to move from the margins to center stage, mimicking the inability of the Global South to do the same. Southern youth bear the brunt of limited economic opportunities, precarious employment, inequality, racism, and violence, compounding their marginalized place in society. What value can social contracting play beyond a short-term band-aid, unless it incorporates a fundamental rupture with the past?

Implicit and explicit norms and tools of safety net management

PurposeThis paper explains the value of interpreting the design of a country's financial safety net as an exercise in incomplete social contracting.Design/methodology/approachSafety net contracts unlucky financial institutions and customers to transfer some or all of what would otherwise be ruinous losses to taxpayers in other sectors. Their capacity to do this is based on a series of unspoken and slowly varying cultural norms that govern when government support is supplied to an insolvent bank, in what forms, on what terms and under what limitations. Identifying these norms is the purpose of this paper. Identifying similarities in the norms that hold sway in the United States and China is the main contribution this paper has to offer.FindingsRegulators do not want to face the consequences of challenging large insolvent banks' claims that funding problems that their managers know to be hopeless reflect a spate of reversible bad luck and a temporary shortfall in liquidity. In hopes of shifting the problem forward to their successors, regulators forbear from meaningful intervention until and unless crisis-driven depositor runs force them into action.Research limitations/implicationsThis means that much like US rescue arrangements, one can demonstrate that the Chinese safety net is incomplete in four ways. It does not fully delineate the events that trigger a loss transfer. It sets formal but imperfectly enforceable limits on the size of potential loss transfers. The political obligations that actually persuade state actors to bail out major banks in a crisis are largely implicit and optional in timing, magnitude and transparency. Finally, the identity of the citizens who will be forced to absorb the costs of crisis bailouts is also optional. Who pays and how they do so will be determined in part during the crisis but will not be finalized until well after the crisis has blown over.Originality/valueThe analysis makes it clear that authorities, express commitment to fair and efficient modes of financial supervision is destined to break down under crisis pressure unless the disadvantaged equity stake that the safety net assigns to taxpayers is rebalanced to record and collect taxpayers' deserved share of the profits a country's megabanks book during booms.

China’s engagement with Kazakhstan and Russia’s Zugzwang: Why is Nur-Sultan incurring regional power hedging?

Grappling with the contemporary topos of a Sino-Russian Entente, Kazakhstan is caught between a delicate long-term peer-competition and potentially a structural rivalry involving the two Eurasian Leviathans, China and Russia. Acknowledging this perspective, Nur-Sultan is inducing hedging dynamics, fishing for a better range of net benefits, while playing a significant fulcrum role central to the regional geopolitical and geo-economic matrix. Although Russia is retaining the prevailing role in the security domain, China is catching up with Russia in various economic indices, notably generated by the Belt and Road Initiative. Utilizing the conceptualization of hierarchy in international relations adapted from the work of David A. Lake, this paper outlines how Nur-Sultan’s interests and preferences are acknowledged by the respective dominants, as a basis for social contracting processes to generate a dual hierarchical order in Central Asia.

Political Determination of Human Nature in the Context of Rousseau

In this study, we will try to show that human nature can be handled with a political determination in Rousseau. Human nature has always been a controversial subject of political philosophy in the historical process. So much so that in these discussions we can see that human nature, especially with Rousseau, is now treated as something that is shaped and changed separately for each of various processes of history. Therefore we will first focus on how human nature is defined in Rousseau in the state of nature to show that human nature has been subjected to political influence in the historical process. Then we will examine how the human nature takes shape with the civilization leading to the end of the state of nature. Finally, through social contracting, we will focus on how human nature is transformed into a political thing by gaining a new dimension.

The balance between resource development and environmental protection is “Social Contracting”: The case of LAPSSET project in Kenya

The LAPSSET project is a mega undertaking with heavy investment. Like any other public infrastructure depends entirely on fund availability and proactive involvement of respective governments, particularly Kenya, given its role as the base of the port in Manda. Unfortunately, the mind-set in the region are fixated to believe that hegemonic tendencies of Kenya will divert the initial idea of connecting Africa. Moreover, given the high costs involved compared to most country’s GDP in the region, cooperation with other sub-regions beyond Eastern Africa is indispensable. This article assess the feasibility of the LAPSSET project within the regional political dynamics.

Psychiatry's and Psychiatrists’ Contract with Society

IntroductionThe World Psychiatric Association (WPA) is a world-wide association of national psychiatric associations, aiming to increase knowledge and skills necessary for work in the field of mental health and care of the mentally ill. It was suggested that Psychiatry's relationship with society should be seen as a contract [1]. This implicit understanding usually specifies the scope, principles, quality and outcome of this agreement. It also implies a series of reciprocal rights and duties, privileges and obligations, as well as expectations from both sides.AimTo investigate the extent of existing social contracting of WPA Member Associations (MAs) and WPA structures regarding:– communities they serve;– general public;– medical institutions;– other practitioner groups in the multidisciplinary team;– administrations, managers and funders.ObjectivesInclude to describe the current scope of psychiatric practice across WPA regions and the content of existing social contracts.MethodsA mixed–methods, explorative, descriptive, theory generating inquiry, with different phases, including a systematic review of literature and WPA documentation, electronic questionnaires to MAs and focus group discussions with WPA ZS chairs/representatives.ResultsMA profiles and progress indicators were identified and summarised. A transcription of group discussions was made, while pertaining documents, questionnaires and in depth/focus group interview content was analysed.ConclusionsThis presentation will report on progress with this study to date.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.