The Right to Higher Education and Political Authority

This chapter provides an account of the nature and scope of political authority over higher education. The account sets out a proactive role for the state the autonomous flourishing of adults. It affirms the idea that the liberal state’s educational obligations to citizens extend beyond a basic or compulsory education, not only for reasons of political justice, but also because it is politically legitimate for the state to do so. The chapter defends this account against the concern that such authority is too paternalistic, and gives examples of how this conception of authority would apply (and not apply) to higher education.

Aristotle’s Political Justice and the Golden Ratio between the Three Opposing Criteria for the Distribution of Public Goods among Citizens: Freedom, Wealth and Virtue

In this article, I interpret Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle presents a geometrical problem to explain which is the Best Criterion for the Distribution of Political and Economic Rights and Duties among Citizens, starting from the empirical evidence that there are three opposing opinions on which is the fairest distribution criterion: for some it is Freedom (Democrats), for others Wealth (Oligarchs), and for others Virtue (Aristocrats). Against the almost unique and most quoted interpretation of the geometrical problem, I present my mathematical solution, which I arrived at thanks to the Doctrine of the Four Causes and the Theory of the Mean. My thesis is that the Mean Term of Distributive Justice is the Golden Ratio between the opposite criteria of distribution, and the unjust distribution is the one that violates this ratio. This solution allows us to understand what is the Rational Principle at the basis of just distribution: that is, Geometrical Equality as opposed to Arithmetical Equality. Indeed, by applying the geometric figure of the Golden Triangle to the different political constitutions, I show, in line with Politics, that the Best Form of Government is the Aristocratic Politeia, i.e., a mixture of Democracy, Oligarchy and Aristocracy.

The Science of Politics

In 1576 Louis Le Roy published a new and expanded edition of his translation of Aristotle’s Politics. In the late-sixteenth century, the starting point for academic political reflection remained the Politics, a text which underlined the importance of participation in the constitution. Although Bodin’s alternative concept of sovereignty was widely admired, many readers were troubled by Bodin’s political and religious ideas and wanted to preserve a role for the Aristotelian idea of political justice and for the Church. The effect was a revitalization of politics as an academic disciple or science, in which the civil community was examined alongside the Church. Leading figures in this process include John Case and Richard Hooker in England and Pierre Grégoire in France. In Emden, Johannes Althusius developed a political theory which he described as a reworking of Aristotle; he emphasized the concept of ‘consociation’ and used it to defend the sovereignty of the people. Henning Arnisaeus challenged Althusius’s claims, preferring to see sovereignty as divisible, shared in the Holy Roman Empire between the Emperor and the Princes, and requiring the use of arcana imperii or secrets of state. This chapter shows that the Aristotelian tradition remained important as a way of portraying a hierarchically organized political society as natural to human beings, but that in the wake of Bodin’s writing there was a shift in emphasis away from questions of virtue and distributive justice and towards a discussion of the nature of sovereign power.

PERSPEKTIF POLITICAL JUSTICE DI DALAM IMPLEMENTASI BPJS PBI DI KOTA SURABAYA

This study discusses the perspective of Political Justice in the Implementation of BPJS PBI in Surabaya. The study aims to determine the implementation of BPJS PBI in Surabaya has fulfilled Political Justice and the implementation of BPJS PBI in Surabaya is adequate as a form of political justice. The research method that uses is descriptive qualitative because it presents a detailed description of the situation or social phenomenon. Methods of data collection using direct interviews with resource persons include: Head of Surabaya City Health Office, Surabaya City DPRD Commission D, Lurah, PBJS recipient community. The results showed that the implementation of BPJS PBI in Surabaya City had not yet fulfilled Political Justice, based on indicators of fairness, equality, equality, and impartiality. The implementation of BPJS PBI in the city of Surabaya is also inadequate as a form of political justice because the state still determines justice in terms of profit and loss to health because the way of thinking lies in the amount of current contributions that do not match the actual calculation. Therefore, the implementation of the Health Insurance for the Poor program funded by the Surabaya City Regional Budget has not yet fulfilled the concept of Political Justice. This can be seen that there are still Health Insurance recipients who are not on target because of lack of accuracy in the process of verifying data on the poor in Surabaya, easy to get a Poor Certificate (SKM) that applies only once, and there are still groups of welfare recipients, so there is no meet the aspects of equity and justice.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND DAKWAH IN THE QUR'AN AND AS-SUNNAH

This article discusses the concept of politics in Islam and its relation to dakwah. Whether politics and Islam are contradictory or whether politics itself is from Islam and needed in a series of dakwah. The method used in this study is the Method of Literature Study and analysis of scientific references related to relationship between politics and dakwah in the Qurán and the Sunnah’s perspective. There are several verses and hadiths that are displayed in this study to understand the context. The result shows that politics is a crucial thing for a Muslim, and it is wrong if someone thinks that Islam does not have to be political justice for the entire Indonesian nation.

Justice in Transactions: A Public Basis for Justifying Contract Law?

This paper challenges Peter Benson’s claim that his theory of justice in transactions can provide a public basis of justification in the Rawlsian sense specifically worked out for contract law. It argues that Benson’s distinct conception of the contracting parties and their relationships makes it an unlikely candidate for public justification in contemporary liberal democracies that are characterized by the fact of a reasonable pluralism of worldviews. Moreover, Benson’s method of deriving principles of contractual justice from existing contract law doctrines and principles risks pre-empting any critical potential for normative contract theory. In addition, its quasi universalism seems difficult to match with the political autonomy of citizens in democratic societies. Finally, Benson’s understanding of contract law as separate from politics appears at odds, not merely with Rawlsian political justice, but with the very idea of public justification.

The I/Indian Not-In-The-Textbook: Native/Indigenous Post-Structuralism, Critical Methodologies, Epistemologies, and Tribal Realities as Agency toward the Decolonization of the Territorial Divide In American Indian Studies Courses

This article focuses upon how, within American Indian Studies courses, there is a necessary border crossing between territorialized Native and non-Native students. Taking the literal borders of Indian reservations, and repositioning these realities as a metaphor for critical epistemological deconstruction, I argue that there is a necessary educational border crossing which is necessary for Native/Indigenous equity and socio-political justice to be realized and acquired as cultural currency. As students within these courses begin to understand, embrace, and challenge American Indian Studies (AIS) courses, and the dynamics of the discipline, there is a self-defined border crossing between, and within, the Native/Indigenous ideological territories, and literal, physical reservation borders, which the curriculum represents. Each student may – or will – find their own point of critical Native/Indigenous inquiry, from which they are challenged and welcomed to embrace, as well as depart from previous scripted Euro American rhetorical references regarding Native/Indigenous cultures. Following this critical epistemology, for the student participant, a new territory of knowledge, cultural, and expressed understanding from, and about, Native/Indigenous Peoples becomes manifest; a new academic frontier is possible. Applying this methodology, for academic decolonization, the i/Indian image/icon need not exist within the textbook(s); the potential for recognizing and decolonizing the physical reservation borders becomes possible. The realities of Native lives – both historic and contemporary - do matter, beyond these limitations and scripted inclusions within textbooks. Whereas a text may prove as a site of disenfranchisement, inequity, and, tribal marginalization, there, then, lies the necessity for Native V/voices to be heard, reviewed, and function as sovereign references and expressions, which advances beyond the terminal reservation borders as agency. This article seeks to challenge pre-determined academic references, mis-representations and re-presentations of Native Peoples, read: the i/Indian image/icon, as well as providing a critique of how Native/Indigenous realities are, then, able to sovereignly relate to the large non-Native population beyond the limitations of a physical reservation border. Taking note that there is no one single educational methodology, which can be applied within American Indian courses, multiple academic perspectives begin to surface, which address the educational process about Native Peoples. The 3 views of Indian education – anthropological/archeological/ethnographic/historical, sympathetic, activist - as I argue, become, and are maintained as antiquated points of articulation, which continue to be employed about Native Peoples, replacing the active dynamics of Native cultures, customs, traditional knowledge, and expressions. This article, therefore, challenges these 3 views of Indian education - anthropological/archeological/ethnographic/historical, sympathetic, activist - noting that the classroom, textbook(s), and their references, mis-representations and re-presentation(s) about Native Peoples, need to be decolonized, following the importance, ideology, dialectics and dynamics of tribal sovereignty, equity, and socio-political justice.