In this paper we argue that dissociative identity disorder (DID) is best interpreted as a causal model of a (possible) post-traumatic psychological process, as a mechanical model of an abnormal psychological condition. From this perspective we examine and criticize the evidential status of DID, and we demonstrate that there is really no good reason to believe that anyone has ever suffered from DID so understood. This is so because the proponents of DID violate basic methodological principles of good causal modeling. (...) When every ounce of your concentration is fixed upon blasting a winged pig out of the sky, you do not question its species' ontological status. James Morrow, City of Truth (1990). (shrink)

This is the first volume compiling English translations of Leibniz's journal articles on natural philosophy, presenting a selection of 26 articles, only three of which have appeared before in English translation. It also includes in full Leibniz's public controversies with De Catelan, Papin, and Hartsoeker. The articles include work in optics, on the fracture strength of materials, and on motion in a resisting medium, and Leibniz's pioneering applications of his calculus to these issues by construing them as mini-max and inverse (...) tangent problems. Other topics covered by the articles include: criticisms of the Cartesian estimate of motive force and Leibniz's proposal of a different way of estimating force to replace it; a proposed theory of celestial motions and gravitation, and derivation of the inverse square law; challenge problems concerning the isochronous curve and the catenary; a sample of work on gaming theory; and Leibniz's critique of atomism. (shrink)

Robert Nozick has attempted to demonstrate that a state can emerge from anarchy which will be legitimate, in that it acquires power in morally permissible (i.e., non rights violating) ways. Its monopoly on force and apparent redistribution of holdings are, according to Nozick, justified by the steps required to prevent risky behavior by the dominant agency. These steps, I argue, contravene Nozick's own entitlement principles and so, his dominant agency is not warranted in taking them. This leaves Nozick "stranded" within (...) his own state of nature, the dominant agency unable to legitimately transform itself into a night watchman state. (shrink)

We explore psychological contracts as mechanisms by which individuals gain influence in organizations. Using two distinct research settings and longitudinal analysis, we demonstrate that ideological contracts endow individuals with increased centrality in the organization’s influence network. More generally, we propose that an important outcome of different psychological contract types may be how they affect the nature of influence in organizations.

People who defend “pragmatic encroachment” about knowledge generally advocate two ideas: you can rationally act according to what you know; knowledge is harder to achieve when more is at stake. In their chapter in this volume, Charity Anderson and John Hawthorne argue that these two ideas may not fit together so well. This chapter extends Anderson and Hawthorne’s argument. By applying some standard decision theory, we can calculate a precise quantity of “how much is at stake” that does fit together (...) with knowledge and action. While this calculated quantity matches intuitions about how much is at stake in certain standard cases, in others it does not.Keywords. (shrink)

Introduction: the question of reason -- The Frankfurt School critique of reason -- Habermas's communicative rationality -- Macintyre's tradition-constituted reason -- A substantive reason -- Beyond relativism: reasonable progress and learning from -- Conclusion: toward a Thomistic-Aristotelian critical theory of society.

An introduction to the March, 2005 symposium "The Political Theory of Organizations: A Retrospective Examination of Christopher McMahon's "Authority and Democracy" held in San Francisco as part of the Society for Business Ethics Group Meeting at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association.

Jeffery Aubin | : Les Diuinae institutiones de Lactance sont souvent citées lorsqu’il s’agit d’analyser le passage du mot religio de la langue latine à la pensée du christianisme. On ne doit toutefois pas lire ce texte du ive siècle de notre ère avec la conception moderne du mot religion. Les sociologues du xxe siècle ont élaboré des définitions de la religion à partir de l’opposition sacré/profane, mais cette dichotomie n’est toutefois pas une catégorie interprétative valide dans l’ouvrage de (...) Lactance. Non seulement il oppose ces deux notions que très rarement, mais la conception de sacer et de profanus diffère des définitions qui se sont imposées depuis un siècle. L’utilisation de concepts modernes pour l’analyse des Diuinae institutiones constitue dès lors un frein à la compréhension des notions de religion, sacré et profane dans l’ouvrage de Lactance. | : The Diuinae institutiones of Lactantius are often referred to when analyzing the transition of the word religio from Latin to Christian thought. However, one should not read this fourth century A.D. text with the modern definition of religion in mind. Twentieth century sociologists put forth definitions of religion based on the sacred-profane opposition, but this dichotomy is not a valid category for the interpretation of religio in the book of Lactantius. Not only does he scarcely oppose these two terms, but also the very notion of sacer and profanus differ from the received definitions of the last century. Therefore, the use of modern concepts is a stumbling block for the understanding of the terms religion, sacred and profane in the Diuinae institutiones of Lactantius. (shrink)

This article offers an historical-materialist account of the coup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, which ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. It draws on over two dozen interviews with members of theFrente Nacional de la Resistencia Popular[National Front of Popular Resistance, FNRP], and participation in numerous marches and assemblies over two periods of fieldwork – January 2010, and June–July 2011. The paper steps back in time to provide an historical cartography of the basic material structures of the Honduran economy (...) and its integration into the world market, as well as the geopolitical role it played as a launching pad for Ronald Reagan’s counter-insurgency campaigns against guerrilla forces elsewhere in the region during the 1980s. We show how the defeat of mass guerrilla insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the triumph over the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by 1990, allowed for the neoliberal pacification of Central America as a whole, including Honduras. We further demonstrate how the centre-leftist Manuel Zelaya, elected to the Honduran presidency in 2006, modestly encroached upon neoliberal orthodoxy and forged geopolitical alliances with left and centre-left governments elsewhere in the region, laying the bases for his violent overthrow. Finally, the paper traces the origins, trajectory, and heterogeneity of the resistance that emerged almost immediately after the coup had been carried out. (shrink)

The Jaina tradition is known for its distinctive approach to prima facie incompatible claims about the nature of reality. The Jaina approach to conflicting views is to seek an integration or synthesis, in which apparently contrary views are resolved into a vantage point from which each view can be seen as expressing part of a larger, more complex truth. Viewed by some contemporary Jaina thinkers as an extension of the principle of ahiṃsā into the realm of intellectual discourse, Jaina logic (...) marks quite a distinctive stance toward the concept of logical consistency. While it does not directly violate the law of excluded middle, it does, one might say, navigate this principle in a highly and potentially useful way. The potential usefulness of Jaina logic includes the possibility of its use in arguing for the position known as religious pluralism or worldview pluralism. This is a view which many philosophers see as holding great promise in developing a way to think about differences across worldviews in ways that do not lead to the kind of conflict and polarization that all too often characterizes ideological differences in today’s world. (shrink)

During the 1990s, the Government of Peru began to aggressivelyprivatize agriculture. The government stopped loaning money to farmers' cooperatives and closed the government rice-buying company. The government even rented out most of its researchstations and many senior scientists lost their jobs. As part of this trend, the government eliminated its seed certification agency. Instead, private seed certification committees were set up with USAID funding and technical advise from a US university. The committees were supposed to become self-financing (bycertifying seed grown (...) by small seed producers) and each committee was supposed to encourage the development of a group of small seed-producing firms, clustered around the seedcertification agency. The amazing thing is that many of the seed committees actually accomplished these goals. The agronomists who staffed the committees stood by their jobs,even after US funding ended, even though the committees' income was (at best) modest, and occasionally under the threat of violence from the extreme left. Some seed certificationcommittees failed and others did not. Some of the problems with Peruvian agricultural liberalization can be seen in regard to the seed programs of maize, rice, potatoes, and beans. For example, the government abandoned most research, yet could not resist creating certain distortions in the seed market (e.g.,buying large amounts of seed and distributing them for political ends). (shrink)

This article, which will appear in three parts over three issues of Historical Materialism, presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers, at (...) a general level, the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. These considerations are then grounded in analyses of the 2000–5 revolutionary epoch, the 18 December 2005 elections, the social origins and trajectory of the Movimiento al Socialismo as a party, the complexities of the relationship between indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation, the process of the Constituent Assembly, the political economy of natural gas and oil, the rise of an autonomist right-wing movement, US imperialism, and Bolivia's relations with Venezuela and Cuba. The central argument is that the economic policies of the new government exhibit important continuities with the inherited neoliberal model and that advancing the project of indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation will require renewed self-activity, self-organisation and strategic mobilisation of popular left-indigenous forces autonomous from the MAS government. (shrink)

One common justification for the pursuit of profit by business firms within a market economy is that profit is not an end in itself but a means to more efficiently produce and allocate resources. Profit, in short, is a mechanism that serves the market’s purpose of producing Pareto superior outcomes for society. This discussion examines whether such a justification, if correct, requires business managers to remain attentive to how their firm’s operation impacts the market’s purpose. In particular, it is argued (...) that the value of efficiency, despite views to the contrary, cannot be fully separated from the planning and intentions of business managers as long as those managers direct their firms in an ethically responsible fashion. This position is inspired by, and serves as a supportive clarification of Joseph Heath’s so-called “market failures approach” to business ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Appreciation of Arvind Mandair's Sikh Philosophy:Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing WorldJeffery D. Long (bio)"Sikhism," the Colonial Project, and Modernity1I do not use this adjective lightly, but in his brilliant volume Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury, 2022) Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair goes a considerable distance toward liberating sikhī—known more widely in the academic world as Sikhism—from the conceptual constraints that have kept it from (...) engaging with and informing global issues. In so doing, he does a service not only to the Sikh community and to sikhī itself, but to the world, for there is indeed much in Sikh thought from which the wider human community can benefit. By liberating sikhī from the constraining concept of religion, Mandair facilitates a process by which persons of any background can engage with gurmat ideas—that is, ideas drawn from the system of thought based upon the teachings of the Gurus of the Sikh tradition—and learn from their wisdom.Mandair skillfully deconstructs the concept of religion, building upon earlier work in which he demonstrates the colonial functionalities of this concept.2 When, through colonial knowledge-production processes, sikhī came to be conceived as a religion, Sikh thought was relegated to the realm of theology. This was a relegation, not an elevation, because under the dominant paradigm of modernity, theology is seen as a discourse that is relevant only to a specific religious community. It is thus perceived as lacking the universality [End Page 353] that is taken to inhere in the discourses of philosophy or science. When combined with the colonial situation of Sikhs under British rule, this relegation of Sikh thought to the realm of theology becomes a way of exerting power over the community. As Mandair explains,Once theology had become the primary regime of cultural translation, Sikh thinking was inevitably tethered to the social and political project of religious identification which was required primarily to facilitate governance of cultural differences or heterogeneity that characterized the indigenous populations [of India]. By doing so, it effectively locked Sikh activity within the confines of identity politics.(p. 10)Integral to British colonial policy in India was a project of defining communities, primarily on the basis of religion, but also deploying concepts such as caste and tribe. Through these definitions, the identities of Indians could be essentialized, and policies applied to them in ways that facilitated British dominance over Indian society.3Much has been written about the ways in which language is used to promote ideologies that serve to advance the power interests of some groups of people over others.4 No less an ideological mechanism than the Oxford English Dictionary has been brought to bear in the process of constraining sikhī and depriving it of the universal relevance that it ought naturally to possess. In Mandair's words, "By defining 'Sikhism' as the beliefs and practices of Sikhs, or as an Indian monotheistic religion founded in fifteenth-century India, the OED turns the Sikh aspect into a cliché—a religious type (monotheism), an ethnic type tied to a geographical location (Punjabi/North India) and a historical type (medieval India)" (p. 11).The damage that has been wrought by the modern colonial concept of religion globally is, of course, not limited exclusively to the Sikh community. It has been integral to the construction of a secular order in which what is regarded as religious thought is, again, relegated to a parochial realm of relevance only to members of specific communities. It further serves to marginalize these same communities, whose discourses come to be seen as lacking the universality of secular thought, which is presented as objective truth. As Mandair continues,The purpose of creating the modern category of 'religion' was to help authorize and naturalize secular rationality as the dominant form of modern consciousness, and as the essential language of conventional thinking, or 'common sense.' It is precisely this common sense which persuades us of the apparent naturalness of oppositions such as religion versus politics or materiality versus ideality, to give two well-known examples.(p. 11)To these two examples, one could add the opposition of religion and... (shrink)

Petti's unprecedented perspective will forever challenge the way people thinkabout God, human origins, ancient mysteries, and Revelation's foretold perilsand deceptive abuse of mistaken beliefs.

Museum practice remains rooted in its historical ontology of nature-culture dualism. This article moves beyond this dualism by combining Bhaskar’s dialectical MELD schema with cultural historical a...

It is predicted that the rapid acquisition of new genetic knowledge and related applications during the next decade will have significant implications for virtually all members of society. Currently, most people get exposed to information about genes and genetics only through stories publicized in the media. We sought to understand how individuals in the general population used and understood the concepts of ???genetics??? and ???genes.??? During in-depth one-on-one telephone interviews with adults in the United States, we asked questions exploring their (...) basic understanding of these terms, as well as their belief as to the location of genes in the human body. A wide range of responses was received. Despite conversational familiarity with genetic terminology, many noted frustration or were hesitant when trying to answer these questions. In addition, some responses reflected a lack of understanding about basic genetic science that may have significant implications for broader public education measures in genetic literacy, genetic counseling, public health practices, and even routine health care. (shrink)

This article describes the unauthorized uses of a coauthored work and a copyrighted U.S. dissertation by European scientists. The case involves alleged infringements of copyright and plagiarism in 6 works that were published up to 19 years after completion of the dissertation and up to 11 years after publication of the coauthored work. Relevant copyright laws, international copyright agreements, and professional psychology ethics and definitions of scientific misconduct are presented. Graduate students and professionals are advised to protect themselves from copyright (...) infringement and recognize that the responsibility for detecting and correcting misappropriated work usually lies with them, not journal editors. (shrink)

This article defends a new model of personal privacy. Privacy should be understood as demarcating culturally defined aspects of an individual's life in which he or she is granted immunity from the judgment of others. Such an analysis is preferable to either of the two favorite models of privacy in the current literature. The judgment of others model preserves all of the insights of the liberty and information models of privacy, But avoids the obvious problems and counterexamples. In addition, This (...) model allows us to better see the normative importance of privacy. A final section discusses the notion of sexual privacy in connection to the proposed model. (shrink)

In her 2011 documentary, La Langue de Zahra/Zahra’s Mother Tongue, Algerian/French filmmaker Fatima Sissani “gives voice” to her Kabyle mother, Zahra, who lived in France as an immigrant woman for years after Algerian independence without speaking French. Often considered uneducated and ignorant, these women act as archives of oral tradition, history, and poetry in a language their children often do not speak. In this paper, I will look at how this performative documentary film creates “spaces in-between” cultures through its uses (...) of performance, orality, and cinematic space. A number of recent Maghrebi and sub-Saharan African documentaries have emerged that can be described as performative documentaries in which historical evocation and emotive connection to the subject matter is as important to the filmmaker as factual referencing. The filmmaker plays a self-reflexive role in the text, which often shapes the content.It is important to note that the film is not about being forced to choose between two ge... (shrink)

The eight essays in Campus Conversations provide some of the best scholarly work emerging from individual faculty learning communities in a statewide program called the Chancellor’s Learning Scholar (CLS) program.

This article presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers at a general level the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. Part II of this three-part essay addresses four (...) major themes. First, it reviews the literature on revolution in contemporary Bolivia. Second, it explains why the 2000 to 2005 period is best conceived as a revolutionary epoch in which left-indigenous social forces were engaged in a combined liberation struggle against racial oppression and class exploitation. However, it argues that this revolutionary epoch has not led to social revolution. Third it examines in detail the electoral rise of Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo party in the December 2005 elections. Fourth, it explores the historical trajectory of the MAS in terms of its changing class composition, ideology, and political strategies since the party's inception in the late 1990s. (shrink)

What is it like to live with the label “Disability?” NIB editorial staff and narrative symposium editors, Jeffery Bishop and Naomi Sunderland developed a call for stories, which was sent to several list serves, shared with the 1000 Voices Project community and posted on Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics ’ website. The request for personal stories from people who identify with the label “disabled” asked them to: consider how the label “disability” interacts with other aspects of their life in health (...) care settings; does the term “disability” reflect their actual embodied experiences of impairment or does it fail to do justice to their particular experience of impairment; describe the kind of experiences that are possible because of the impairment(s); discuss how the label has affected their “authentic voice”; and many other concepts about what effects the label has on their lives. These authors share deeply personal experiences that will help readers understand their world, challenges, and joys. Thirteen stories are found in the print version of the journal and an additional five supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. The stories are complemented by four commentary articles by Elizabeth R. Schiltz; Lorna Hallahan; Nicole Matthews, Kathleen Ellem, and Lesley Chenoweth; and Jeffery Bishop, Rachelle Barina, and Devan Stahl. These scholars come from the disciplines of law, social work, media studies, medicine, and bioethics from Australia and the United States. Together, the symposium’s storytellers and commentators offer striking and informative insights into the everydayness of living with disabilities. (shrink)

I argue that we must read Alasdair MacIntyre’s mature work through a Marxist lens. I begin by discussing his argument that we must choose which God to worship on principles of justice, which, it turns out, are ones given to us by God. I contend that this argument entails that we must see Mac- Intyre’s early Marxist commitments as given to him by God, and, therefore, that he has never abandoned them in his turn to Thomistic-Aristotelianism. I examine his reading (...) of Marx, with its emphasis on the concept of alienation as a Christian concept, and explain how this reading differs from the dom- inant scientific-determinist reading of Marx. This examination then leads to a discussion of why MacIntyre abandoned both Marxism and Christian- ity in 1968. Finally, I turn to his more recent writing on Marx. I contend that if we view them through his argument about the principles of justice and which God to worship, we see MacIntyre’s mature philosophy as more Marxist than most people, perhaps even MacIntyre himself, would allow. (shrink)

Today’s Left has inherited and internalized the rift that split the New Left. This split led to Alasdair MacIntyre’s Herbert Marcuse: An Exposition and a Polemic, a book that angered many because of MacIntyre’s harsh treatment of Marcuse. I situate MacIntyre’s engagement with Marcuse against the background of the split in the New Left: on the one side, E. P. Thompson, MacIntyre, and those who then saw the revolutionary class in the proletariat, and on the other side, Perry Anderson, Robin (...) Blackburn, and Marcuse who seemed to put their faith in radical student intellectuals, Third World movements, and identity politics. I examine—without polemics— this rift in search of a new basis for Left unity, particularly as regards the question of radical, working class subjectivity. I argue that we must draw from MacIntyre his concept of revolutionary practices and from Marcuse—in One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization—the analysis of technological rationality, aesthetic reason, phantasy, and imagination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Mimetic SacredGirard and Bataille Transcending DesireJeffery D. McNeil (bio)René Girard's (1923–2015) mimetic theory and Georges Bataille's (1897–1962) theory of the sacred both describe an unwitting pull to violence fueled by an aspect of desire. This violence cannot be denied but may be channeled through ritual, resulting in social cohesion or utter catastrophe. Their theories also illustrate the contagious flow of affective violence between individuals, quickly infecting the whole. (...) Girard describes a violent contagion that threatens physical annihilation, while Bataille's more vital contagion illustrates the dissolution of self into other. Both come to the same result—collective cohesion. However, for all the similarities, the essential mechanisms "end up with profoundly different visions of the dynamics sustaining the social bond and, indeed, of society's whole affective economy."1 For Girard, the operative community requires distinct individuals specific in their identities. A lack of distinctions between individuals—a state he calls undifferentiation—leads to a struggle for identity, conflict, and violence. Unity comes from the catharsis of collectively thwarting violence before conflict can destroy the community. For Bataille, unity comes from collectively communicating through ritual. A [End Page 103] primal urge to slip out of the hierarchical mastery of discontinuous being and join with the other in a step closer to continuous being unites through mutual affect generated through shared experience. Girard asserts that cohesion occurs by maintaining separation, while Bataille describes cohesion generated in its destruction.Despite their similar concerns and many agreements, Girard and Bataille have rarely been compared. Among those few studies, Tiina Arppe argues that the divergence in both thinkers' theories can be found in their sources, namely, Emile Durkheim's theory of the sacred and Alexandre Kojève's reading of Hegel.2 Antony D. Traylor argues in answering the question of the purpose of sacrifice that Bataille's understanding may add to or replace Girard's scapegoat mechanism.3 Traylor dissects both theories focusing on Girard's critique of metaphysical desire and Bataille's notion of sovereignty. Nidesh Lawtoo mobilizes both thinkers and others to unmask the mimetic forces entwined in ego creation.4 First, similar to Arppe, I argue that apparent contradictions between Girard and Bataille arise from critical influences of each thinker and offer an analysis paving the way, like Traylor, toward compatibility. However, I focus on the influence (or denial) of Sigmund Freud and Marcel Mauss—whom I argue are the most crucial influences for untangling these theories. By examining Girard's interpretation of Freud's theory of cultural origin and Bataille's use of Mauss's notion of the gift and potlatch, I trace a short anthropological genealogy of the sacred that proves critical to both theories.5 In that regard, I eschew wrestling with metaphysical concerns and instead take an anthropological approach to the sacred that moves beyond compatibility. Second, we perform a synthetization, illuminating a shared mimetic force lurking within both theories and how Bataille offers an expansion to Girard's already acute observations—for which Lawtoo's notions of the mimetic unconscious and mimetic communication are essential.My primary source for Girard's theory is Violence and the Sacred, with secondary support from The Scapegoat and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. For Bataille, I consult Erotism: Death and Sensuality and two essays: "The Notion of Expenditure" (and its later development in The Accursed Share) and "Definition of Heterology." I also use a small but significant excerpt from Theory of Religion concerning sacrifice and the festival. Secondary literature is introduced as needed. [End Page 104]PSYCHOANALYTIC ANTHROPOLOGYGirard and Bataille found varying degrees of influence in Freud. A short detour through the relationship between subject and desire and the violent origins of the sacred will set the stage for a deeper comparison. While Girard does not explicitly admit using the father of psychoanalysis as a starting point,6 he acknowledges the influence and relegates it under his own, claiming that Freud's theory "has been replaced by another explanation, at once very close to and very far removed from the Freudian viewpoint."7 Lawtoo illustrates essential similarities to be "Girard's emphasis on desire as the essence of... (shrink)

For most of the two and a half centuries since Thomas Hearne first printed the poem now known as The Battle of Maldon, scholars have read it as a factual contemporary account by a well-informed observer of a historical event. The date and circumstances of the death of Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, are attested in surviving records independent of the poem; and his fame and deeds can be traced through the charters and wills of the reigns of kings Eadwig, Eadgar, (...) Eadweard, and Aethelred. Moreover, the identities of several of the members of Byrhtnoth's heorþwerod who died with him according to the poem can be surmised if not proved by existing documents, and their relationships to their fallen leader established. In 1926 E. D. Laborde put the final piece of reality into the puzzle by showing that the Northey Island causeway just south of Maldon on the Backwater fits exactly the complicated combination of geography and tide required by the scenes and events of the poem. Today the battle site on high ground on South House Farm opposite Northey Island is marked with crossed swords on Ordnance Survey maps, and the peculiarities of the tide at the causeway are used to explain the meaning of an otherwise obscure verse of the poem. jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); }). (shrink)

Judgments vary in the extent to which they are based on interpretation versus relatively direct access to mental contents. That is, a judgment might require a trivial amount of interpretation (e.g., translating one's immediately accessible ) or a rather substantial amount of confabulation. Recognizing this continuum of interpretation underlying judgment could be more fruitful than debating a categorical introspection versus interpretation distinction.

This editorial perspective attempts to explain the recent rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency in Brazil and to characterise, at least in a preliminary fashion, the nature of the new regime one year into Bolsonaro’s rule. The core argument is that Bolsonaro represents a weak and internally-fragmented far-right regime, with unenthusiastic and declining popular support. Dominant sections of international and domestic capital operating in Brazil lent Bolsonaro electoral backing as a last way out of economic and political crisis, but (...) so far, the new government has failed in sufficiently guaranteeing their most important interests and the markets are withdrawing approval. Themes covered include the political paralysis of the new regime, the social bases of Bolsonarismo, the nature of the current state–capital relation, and the role of evangelical Pentecostalism in far-right Brazilian politics today. A biographical portrait of Bolsonaro is provided, alongside a mapping of the dominant factions of the new administration. Finally, an assessment of the economic outlook in Brazil is developed, together with speculation as to the likely political consequences in the short- to medium-term future. (shrink)

This review-essay offers an extended engagement with Fernando Ignacio Leiva’s Latin American Neostructuralism, one of the most important contributions to contemporary Latin-American political economy. It situates Leiva’s critique of neostructuralism against the wider backdrop of Latin America’s contradictory turn to the Left since the late 1990s, and compares the treatments of change in Latin-American capitalism over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries developed by the schools of classical structuralism, neostructuralism, and neoliberalism. The essay finds that Leiva’s critique (...) of neostructuralism and his explanation for its influence on large segments of the region’s Left is the best work on the topic currently available in English. Leiva systematically demolishes neostructuralism’s claim to be a progressive alternative to neoliberalism. At the same time, it is argued that Leiva’s theoretical framework is compromised by its uncritical adoption of categories from French regulation-theory, and its nostalgia for elements of classical structuralism and its associated development-model of import-substitution industrialisation. Further, it is found that Leiva’s implicit attachment to certain myths propagated by the Marxism of the Second and, especially, Third Internationals regarding the national bourgeoisie’s role in Third-World capitalist development leaves him unduly dogmatic about the necessity, and unduly optimistic about the possibility, of building a progressive stage of capitalism in Latin America today. The same mythologies prevent Leiva from drawing the appropriate conclusions as regards the urgent necessity of rebuilding the socialist project in Latin America and internationally. (shrink)