The Democratic Paradox •
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Confucian Marxism and Its Implications in the Current Age of Globalization
CONFUCIAN MARXISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS IN THE CURRENT AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Chen Weigang I. The Issue: Culture and Peripheral Justice One does not need to embrace Samuel Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations to recognize the increasing salience of cultural and ethnic confl ict in the post-Cold War world.1 Indeed, recent major trends in the developing world, from the spectacular growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Muslim countries to the rapid ascendancy of Confucian nationalism in East Asia,2 all demonstrate clearly that cul- ture and cultural identities have become the driving force in global politics today. How, then, do we explain the intriguing fact that precisely at the moment when the West scores a decisive victory over all political and economic alternatives, when capitalism is universally accepted as the only feasible way to rationally organize a modern economy, and when Third-World industrialization tears down the traditional North-South structure thereby marking the beginning of an age of capitalist global- ization, there has emerged across non-Western societies an ever more powerful anti-Western backlash and an ever stronger aspiration for 1 Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996). 2 In 1993, Hanoi published, at great expense, a romanized Vietnamese translation (in fi fteen volumes with almost eight thousand pages) of “The Imperially Authorized Compendium of Institutions and Institutional Cases of the Great South” (“The Great South” was the Vietnamese imperial name for Vietnam, adopted in the late 1830s). The “Compendium of Institutions” had been compiled originally in classical Chinese by senior mandarins of the Vietnamese court at Hue in the 1840s. -
Masses, Turbo-Capitalism and Power in Jean Baudrillard's Social
International Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Science No. 3, Year 2/2018 MASSES, TURBO-CAPITALISM AND POWER IN JEAN BAUDRILLARD’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ONTOTHEOLOGY PhD. Prof. Spiros MAKRIS Assistant Professor in Political Theory University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, GREECE Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT If postmodern Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) could be defined as a theorist of power - to the extent that for some this is a contradiction by definition, although something very similar takes place in the case of Michel Foucault, he could be defined as a theorist of meta-power in the globalized era of turbo-capitalism. In his late texts (2005), which were published in 2010, the eminent French philosopher builds a provocative theory about power by using the classic concepts of domination and hegemony within the contemporary social, economic, political and ideological context of neoliberal globalization. In these papers, he analyzes in-depth the meta- power of hegemony in comparison with the power of domination. Actually, by signifying the critical passage of postwar capitalism from the phase of production to the phase of consumption, as Zygmunt Bauman does in his relevant work, Baudrillard formulates a meta-power theory as the equivalent of what he defines as turbo-capitalism. What is at stake is no longer the conventional issues of state sovereignty, Marx-inspired concept of alienation and Critical Theory-like negative dialectics but the crucial questions of hegemony, hostage and evilness. In short, Jean Baudrillard builds a new ontological and by extension disciplinary and theoretical field concerning global power, where the ‘Empire of Good’, or turbo-capitalism in his own terminology, is reborn in a totally catastrophic way (see simulation in the sense of a capitalist hypocrisy) either as an ‘Axis of Evil’ or as the ‘problem of terror’ (see simulacrum in the sense of a Lacanian stage of image within which turbo-capitalism represses, through a Freudian process of repelling, its unfamiliar self/i.e. -
Project Red Dawn
Project Red Dawn Labour’s revival (and survival) Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC September 2015 Project Red Dawn Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC © Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC September 2015 Lord Ashcroft Polls 2 Project Red Dawn Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, author and philanthropist. He is founder and Chairman of the Board of Crimestoppers, a member of the Board of the Imperial War Museum and a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation, Chairman of the Trustees of Ashcroft Technology Academy, Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and Treasurer of the International Democrat Union. From 2005 to 2010 he was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. His political works include Smell The Coffee: A Wake-Up Call For The Conservative Party; Minority Verdict; Project Blueprint; What Future For Labour?; What Are The Liberal Democrats For?; It’s Not You, It’s Them: Research To Remind Politicians What Matters; Degrees of Separation: Ethnic Minority Voters And The Conservative Party; They’re Thinking What We’re Thinking: Understanding The UKIP Temptation; Small Island: Public Opinion And The Politics Of Immigration; Europe On Trial; Cameron’s Caledonian Conundrum. Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography Of David Cameron is published by Biteback in October 2015. For more information please go to www.LordAshcroftPolls.com. You can also follow Lord Ashcroft on Twitter: @LordAshcroft Lord Ashcroft Polls 3 Project Red Dawn Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC Contents Introduction: Red Dawn? 5 Methodology 8 Key points 9 Why vote Labour? 11 Why not vote Labour? 14 Labour’s past (and present) 20 Labour’s future 22 Full poll results 29 Lord Ashcroft Polls 4 Project Red Dawn Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC Introduction: Red Dawn? Five years ago I conducted some research to find out why people in the Labour movement thought they had lost the 2010 election and what they thought they should do about it. -
Enacting Democracy: Deliberation, Agonism, and the Empty Place of Political Action
Enacting democracy: Deliberation, agonism, and the empty place of political action Erin Pineda1 Department of Political Science, Yale University [email protected] Abstract Despite the celebrated place of political action – and in particular, the kinds of contentious collective action characterized by protest – in the history of modern democracy, it is notably absent in recent deliberative and agonist theorizing. In the midst of a debate centered on the dynamics of conflict, consensus, disagreement, diversity, and popular sovereignty in a democracy, a curiously empty place has opened up between the two sides: while the political action of social movements and collectivities operates as an important referent for both deliberative democrats and their agonist critics, both have tended to stop short of theorizing the ways social movements act to provoke, promote, and protest particular forms and modes of our shared public and democratic life. This paper argues that contentious, collective political action, though involving both deliberative and agonistic elements, is not well-captured by either theory. A better understanding of the dynamics of political action -- both descriptively and normatively -- is crucial to any understanding of the kinds of social and democratic changes valued by both deliberative democrats and agonists. Introduction In some ways, the most potent image of the history of democracy is that of the people, filling the streets or the public square, engaged in the contentious, collective act of protest. From a bloody, revolutionary baptism at the Bastille to more recent events – revolutionary, reformist, or somewhere in between – in Tahrir Square, Gezi Park, and dozens of “Occupy” sites across the U.S., the particular forms of political action undertaken by citizens in assembly, organized dissent, and collective demonstration have proven a vital part not only of foundings (and re-foundings), but have served as incomparable mechanisms for the maintenance, reform, revitalization, disruption and transformation of political practices and institutions. -
Neoliberal and Militarised Post-Politics: Four Social Regimes, Four Affects and Radical Politics Today Ali Rıza Taşkale Thesis
Neoliberal and Militarised Post-Politics: Four Social Regimes, Four Affects and Radical Politics Today Ali Rıza Taşkale Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography, The University of Sheffield February 2013 ii Abstract This dissertation theorises the depoliticised conditions of late capitalism through what I call a ‘neoliberal and militarised post-politics.’ It argues that ours is a neoliberal and militarised post-political society that cannot imagine disruptive revolutionary events. The dissertation addresses key debates on governmental social regimes of neoliberal post-politics, the inseparability of neoliberalism and war/militarism, and the historical/geographical unevenness of global capitalism. In so doing, it offers an original topological analysis that makes the following critical interventions: an exploration of how the much-discussed social regimes of sovereignty, discipline and control relate to each other in the production of neoliberal governmentality; an analysis of the affective logic each regime entails and how they inter-relate; a proposal for a fourth regime, ‘terrorism’, and a theorisation of its associated affect, ‘spite.’ Finally, radical critique as divine violence is set against neoliberal and militarised post-politics. iii iv Acknowledgements Special thanks are due here to Eric Olund, my primary supervisor, for his patience and guidance as well as constant encouragement and support through the travails of writing and completing the dissertation. Thanks are also due to Jessica Dubow, my second supervisor, for her exemplary readings and invaluable comments on the chapters which now make up this dissertation. The support I have received from Benjamin Hennig and Lukáš Makovický throughout the dissertation has, of course, been inestimable. -
Post-Politics and the Aesthetic Imagination,” Edited Collection (DEADLINE: MAY 20)
H-Democracy CFP: “Post-Politics and the Aesthetic Imagination,” Edited Collection (DEADLINE: MAY 20) Discussion published by Juan Meneses on Sunday, May 16, 2021 “Post-Politics and the Aesthetic Imagination” CFP for Edited Collection This Call for Papers seeks abstracts for essays that reflect on the analytical bridges that might exist between post-political theory and the study of aesthetics broadly conceived. The main question the project aims to answer is the following: Decades after everything was declared to be political, what are the affordances, triumphs, and pitfalls of a post-political theory of aesthetics? The work of theorists of post-politics such as Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and Erik Swyngedouw among others has exposed the processes by which political action is currently being eroded, sites for its practice are increasingly disappearing, and political agency is in need of urgent revitalization. At the same time, much post-political critical discourse has concentrated on connecting the saturation of the practice of politics, as well as its subsequent evacuation, with the need to formulate new and alternative ways to generate meaningful political change. While post-political theory has featured in analyses traditionally labelled “political,” a more explicit reflection on the contours, scope, and interpretive value of post- political theory for the study of aesthetics is absent in the critical theory corpus and it can offer a crucial contribution. At the core are questions: What does the post- political stand for exactly, and how can issues concerning representation (textual, visual, aural, etc. as well as political) be rethought through this lens? Related Citation: Juan Meneses. -
Democracia Y Conflicto En Contextos Pluralistas DEPOIMENTO
Democracia y conflicto en contextos pluralistas DEPOIMENTO Democracia y conflicto en contextos pluralistas: entrevista con Chantal Mouffe Democracy and conflict in pluralist contexts: an interview with Chantal Mouffe Entrevista con: Chantal Mouffe Profesora e investigadora, Centre for the Study of Democracy/ RAMOS, Aura Helena et al. Democracia y conflicto en contextos University of Westminster. pluralistas: entrevista con Chantal Mouffe. História, Ciências, Saúde – [email protected] Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, v.21, n.2, abr.-jun. 2014, p.749-763. Concedida a: Resumen Aura Helena Ramos Chantal Mouffe, junto al teórico político argentino Ernesto Laclau Profesora, Faculdade de Educação (1935-2014), lanzó, en 1985, las bases de la teoría del discurso. Luego, e Programa de Pós-graduação em desarrolló su trabajo en el sentido de profundizar como influyen las Educação, Cultura e Comunicação formulaciones de la teoría del discurso en el análisis de las democracias em Periferias Urbanas/Universidade contemporáneas. Abordando el conflicto como una producción del do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Rua São Francisco Xavier, 524 encuentro de la diferencia, Mouffe lo comprende como un aspecto 20550-900 – Rio de Janeiro – RJ indeleble en la constitución del social. En este encuentro con la autora, – Brasil buscamos reflexionar algunos temas y problemáticas centrales de [email protected] su trabajo, y las implicaciones de su teoría en el campo educacional contemporáneo. Anna Luiza A. R. Martins de Oliveira Palabras clave: Chantal Mouffe (1943- ); teoría del discurso; democracia pluralista; derechos humanos; cultura. Profesora, Programa de Pós- graduação em Educação Contemporânea/Universidade Abstract Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE). Av. Professor Moraes Rego, 1235 Chantal Mouffe, along with Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau (1935- 50670-901 – Recife – PE – Brasil 2014), laid down the bases of discourse theory in 1985. -
Agonism Contra Liberalism
Agonistic Critiques of Liberalism: Perfection and Emancipation Thomas Fossen1 Utrecht University Published in Contemporary Political Theory, 2008, 7, (376–394) http://www.palgrave-journals.com/cpt/journal/v7/n4/abs/cpt200815a.html Abstract: Agonism is a political theory that places contestation at the heart of politics. Agonistic theorists charge liberal theory with a depoliticization of pluralism through an excessive focus on consensus. This paper examines the agonistic critiques of liberalism from a normative perspective. I argue that by itself the argument from pluralism is not sufficient to support an agonistic account of politics, but points to further normative commitments. Analyzing the work of Mouffe, Honig, Connolly, and Owen, I identify two normative currents of agonistic theory: emancipatory agonism, aimed at challenging violence and exclusion, and perfectionist agonism, aimed at the cultivation of nobility. From a normative perspective the former presents an internal challenge to liberalism, while the latter constitutes an external challenge to liberalism by providing a competing account of the ends of politics. Recognition of the distinction between emancipatory and perfectionist agonism is crucial in assessing the purchase of agonistic critiques of liberalism. Furthermore, this analysis draws us beyond the simple opposition between contestation and consensus. It is not simply a question of valuing genuine pluralism and therefore criticizing consensus; rather the question comes to be: what are the ends of politics? Introduction Agonism can be defined as a political theory that does not place any institutions, procedures, principles, or values beyond political contestation; that precludes final closure on any question. In doing so, it challenges some of the fundamental commitments of the liberal paradigm as embodied in political liberalism and deliberative democracy, most fundamentally the idea that the legitimacy of a political regime relies on a consensus among rational or reasonable citizens. -
Habermas: Testing the Political Estelle Ferrarese
Habermas: Testing the Political Estelle Ferrarese To cite this version: Estelle Ferrarese. Habermas: Testing the Political. Thesis Eleven, SAGE Publications, 2015. halshs- 01251486 HAL Id: halshs-01251486 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01251486 Submitted on 16 Jan 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Page Proof Instructions and Queries Journal Title: THE Article Number: 602176 No. Query Please confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details, is correct. Please review the entire document for typographical errors, mathematical errors, and any other necessary corrections; check headings, tables, and figures. Please ensure that you have obtained and enclosed all necessary permissions for the reproduction of artistic works, (e.g. illustrations, photographs, charts, maps, other visual material, etc.) not owned by yourself. Please refer to your publishing agreement for further information. Please note that this proof represents your final opportunity to review your article prior -
DEMOPOLIS Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice
Trim: 228mm 152mm Top: 11.774mm Gutter: 18.98mm × CUUK3282-FM CUUK3282/Ober ISBN: 978 1 316 51036 0 April 18, 2017 12:53 DEMOPOLIS Democracy before Liberalism in Theory and Practice JOSIAH OBER Stanford University, California v Trim: 228mm 152mm Top: 11.774mm Gutter: 18.98mm × CUUK3282-FM CUUK3282/Ober ISBN: 978 1 316 51036 0 April 18, 2017 12:53 Contents List of Figures page xi List of Tables xii Preface: Democracy before Liberalism xiii Acknowledgments xvii Note on the Text xix 1 Basic Democracy 1 1.1 Political Theory 1 1.2 Why before Liberalism? 5 1.3 Normative Theory, Positive Theory, History 11 1.4 Sketch of the Argument 14 2 The Meaning of Democracy in Classical Athens 18 2.1 Athenian Political History 19 2.2 Original Greek Defnition 22 2.3 Mature Greek Defnition 29 3 Founding Demopolis 34 3.1 Founders and the Ends of the State 36 3.2 Authority and Citizenship 44 3.3 Participation 48 3.4 Legislation 50 3.5 Entrenchment 52 3.6 Exit, Entrance, Assent 54 3.7 Naming the Regime 57 4 Legitimacy and Civic Education 59 4.1 Material Goods and Democratic Goods 60 4.2 Limited-Access States 63 4.3 Hobbes’s Challenge 64 4.4 Civic Education 71 ix Trim: 228mm 152mm Top: 11.774mm Gutter: 18.98mm × CUUK3282-FM CUUK3282/Ober ISBN: 978 1 316 51036 0 April 18, 2017 12:53 x Contents 5 Human Capacities and Civic Participation 77 5.1 Sociability 79 5.2 Rationality 83 5.3 Communication 87 5.4 Exercise of Capacities as a Democratic Good 88 5.5 Free Exercise and Participatory Citizenship 93 5.6 From Capacities to Security and Prosperity 98 6 Civic Dignity -
The Power of the Prime Minister
Research Paper Research The Power of the Prime Minister 50 Years On George Jones THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER 50 YEARS ON George Jones Emeritus Professor of Government London School of Economics & Political Science for The Constitution Society Based on a lecture for the Institute of Contemporary British History, King’s College, London, 8 February 2016 First published in Great Britain in 2016 by The Constitution Society Top Floor, 61 Petty France London SW1H 9EU www.consoc.org.uk © The Constitution Society ISBN: 978-0-9954703-1-6 © George Jones 2016. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER 3 Contents About the Author 4 Foreword 5 Introduction 9 Contingencies and Resource Dependency 11 The Formal Remit and Amorphous Convention 13 Key Stages in the Historical Development of the Premiership 15 Biographies of Prime Ministers are Not Enough 16 Harold Wilson 17 Tony Blair – almost a PM’s Department 19 David Cameron – with a department in all but name 21 Hung Parliament and Coalition Government 22 Fixed-term Parliaments Act, 2011 25 Party Dynamics 26 Wilson and Cameron Compared 29 Enhancing the Prime Minister 37 Between Wilson and Cameron 38 Conclusions 39 4 THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER About the Author George Jones has from 2003 been Emeritus Professor of Government at LSE where he was Professor of Government between 1976 and 2003. -
A Focus on Chantal Mouffe's “Agonistic Democracy”
Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook No. 13, March, 2019. pp. 111-121 Rethinking of the Signifi cance of Passions in Political Education: A Focus on Chantal Mouff e’s “Agonistic Democracy” Sho Yamanaka* This paper discusses the significance of passions in political education through the consideration of Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democracy. Mouffe points out the role of the passions that facilitate organizing political identities, and presents the risks of eliminating passions. The liberal interpretation of de- mocracy intends to eliminate passions that prevent people achieving a rational consensus. On the other hand, the emphasis on rationality makes it easy for right-wing populism to mobilize people’s passions. In other words, the elimina- tion of passions creates a situation in which dialogue with other political iden- tities is diffi cult: this is the contradiction of the liberal interpretation of democ- racy. To avoid this, Mouff e suggests channels that express collective passions as democratic designs to disarm antagonistic passions. Mouffe’s democratic theory indicates the risk of a too optimistic understanding of the passions in political education which takes deliberative approaches. Also, this result sug- gests the necessity of reconsidering the position of passions in the political ed- ucation. From the perspective of Mouff e’s agonistic democracy, the role of po- litical education should be regarded as not elimination of passions but sublimation of antagonistic passions. To achieve this sublimation, we should fa- cilitate participation in democratic practices. However, sublimation of antago- nistic passions through democratic institutions is not always successful. If an- tagonistic passions are expressed in destructive forms, what should we do? This paper touches only briefl y on this point.