In Culture, Politics, and Governing, the study of contemporary ascetics provided me with a way to approach the practice of knowledge production and its intersection with cultural production that was able to take into account the institutionalization of authors and artists and the ways in which their practices were both governed and governing, often through valorization. Recently, I have worked to extend this framework to settings that are less obvious as sites for the production of governing knowledge: what Max (...) Weber and Foucault discussed as ascetics, generated through what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno called the culture industry. The contemporary culture industry produces an art of living genre that encourages pecuniary subjects who treat the self as a site for the production of value from which to practice valorized ascetics. (shrink)

"This is one of the most significant contributions to Locke studies in the twentieth century.

I RELIGION AND POLITICS: THE LAW Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, believes in the divine origin of government. It follows, therefore, that political ...

Trust and Governance asks several important questions: Is trust really essential to good governance, or are strong laws more important? What leads people either to trust or to distrust government, and what makes officials decide to be trustworthy? Can too much trust render the public vulnerable to government corruption, and if so what safeguards are necessary? In approaching these questions, the contributors draw upon an abundance of resources to offer different perspectives on the role of trust in (...) class='Hi'>government. Enriched by perspectives from political science, sociology, psychology, economics, history, and philosophy, Trust and Governance opens a new dialogue on the role of trust in the vital relationship between citizenry and government. (shrink)

Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical tool-box of data protection when they discuss and address controversial issues such as digital mass surveillance. Yet, critical approaches to the digital only barely explore the politics of data protection in relation to data-driven governance. Building on governmentality studies and Actor-Network-Theory, this article analyses the potential and limits of using data protection to critique the ‘digital age’. Using the conceptual tool of dispositifs, it sketches an analytics of data protection and the (...) emergence of its configuration as ‘data protection by design and by default’. This exploration reminds us that governing through data implies, first and foremost, governing digital data. (shrink)

This article examines the consequences of the politicization of health care in the United Kingdom following the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. The NHS is founded on the principle of universal access to health care free at the point of use but in reality charges exist for some services and other services are rationed. Not to charge and/or ration would create a common-pool resource with no means of conserving scarce resources. Taking rationing decisions in the political (...) realm means that the values and priorities of individual patients are marginalized and the preferences of powerful organized groups able to capture the political process dominate. The key lesson for international health care reform is that the politicization of health care via the NHS has not led to the realization of egalitarian ends but rather has empowered vested and organized interests at the expense of individual patients. (shrink)

Nuestro trabajo ofrece algunas claves de lectura del proceso por el cual fue posible que la actividad de los tribunales de justicia, a comienzos de los años '90 en Latinoamérica en general y en Argentina de manera significativa, adquiriese una relevancia y una consideración singular respecto al ejercicio del poder político. Este fenómeno, habitualmente denominado "judicialización de la política", supone una tendencia a procesar y dar respuesta a conflictos de índole política, a través de instituciones judiciales. En relación a ello, (...) nos interesa mostrar las interconexiones, puntos de apoyo, resortes a través de los cuales es posible ligarlo al diagrama de relaciones de poder y procesos de subjetivación que caracterizan a la gubernamentalidad neoliberal. Our paper offers some lecture keys on the process through which made it possible the political relevance of judicial activity during the 1990's in Latin American in general, and in Argentina in particular. This phenomenon, commonly known as 'judicialization of politics', supposes a tendency of processing political conflicts through the judiciary. Related to that our paper proposes to show, to make it visible, interconnections and supports through which it is possible to understand it emergence within the diagram of power relations and processes of subjectivation that characterizes neoliberal governmentality. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Ideals as Standards and their Approximations The Paradox of the Philosopher‐king: Knowledge and Political Power Knowledge and Opinions Platonic Forms and Physical Particulars Plato's Theory of the Form of the Good Knowledge of Good How Elitist is Plato's Completely Good City?

Introduction. The paper contains political and psychological profiles of the local self-government deputies in the city of Chelyabinsk. The purpose of the study is to examine how municipal reform in 2014 influenced institutional opportunities for creating a new model of political leadership in terms of its effectiveness on political and psychological level. Methods. The author’s approach is based on the combination of political and psychological techniques, such as qualitative content analysis, psychobiography and in-depth interview (for assessing politicians’ images in (...) mass consciousness). Scientific novelty. The author presumes that political leadership is a complex phenomenon based on institutional and psychological factors. Its institutional framework for the purpose of the research is determined by the municipal reform. The deputies’ psychological profiles are viewed as individual patterns of political behavior shaped as a result of adopting individual psychological characteristics to the demands of political role presumed by the reform’s conceptual foundations. Results. The data contain evidence that political and psychological profiles of the deputies under analysis in general lack features which make it possible to uncover the institutional potential of the reform. A new model of political leadership presumed by the reform’s conception was supposed to possess such attributes as: 1) widening political representation; 2) enhancing effectiveness of communication between leaders and followers; 3) depoliticizing agenda. The analysis shows that deputies elected under reform on the “inner” level are rigid and reproduce inertial model of political behavior. On the “outer” level their perception is superficial and does not have explicit potential to improve due to revealed unconscious parameters. Conclusions. Two electoral cycles within the reform did not fully reveal the leadership potential of the deputies. Therefore, the perspectives of its prolongation are viewed by the author as highly problematic. (shrink)

Government depends on collective decision making. Even in peaceful democracies, some decide for all. The author challenges the morality of this position. It is not different political systems that are at fault as the nature of politics itself.

This paper examines the internal dynamics of Korean political parties to understand why the minority coalition government of Kim Dae-jung suffered from political stalemate or deadlocks in the legislature. It shows that a focus on the size of the government in terms of a majority status in the legislature does not offer a convincing explanation of why the Kim Dae-jung administration slid towards ungovernability. Instead better insights come from an analysis of party organization, an aspect of party (...) class='Hi'>politics rarely examined through in-depth analysis. The paper shows that in terms of the key dimensions of organization (leadership type, factionalism, funding, linkage role) Korean political parties fail to connect citizens to the political system. (shrink)

Michel de Montaigne is principally known today as a literary figure--the inventor of the modern essay and the pioneer of autobiographical self-exploration who retired from politics in midlife to write his private, philosophical, and apolitical Essais. But, as Biancamaria Fontana argues in Montaigne's Politics, a novel, vivid account of the political meaning of the Essais in the context of Montaigne's life and times, his retirement from the Bordeaux parliament in 1570 "could be said to have marked the beginning, (...) rather than the end, of his public career." He later served as mayor of Bordeaux and advisor to King Henry of Navarre, and, as Fontana argues, Montaigne's Essais very much reflect his ongoing involvement and preoccupation with contemporary politics--particularly the politics of France's civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. Fontana shows that the Essais, although written as a record of Montaigne's personal experiences, do nothing less than set forth the first major critique of France's ancien régime, anticipating the main themes of Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire and Diderot. Challenging the views that Montaigne was politically aloof or evasive, or that he was a conservative skeptic and supporter of absolute monarchy, Fontana explores many of the central political issues in Montaigne's work--the reform of legal institutions, the prospects of religious toleration, the role of public opinion, and the legitimacy of political regimes. (shrink)

'It would ... be a pity if the sketch of religious controversy in the 1670s contained in Richard Ashcraft's bold and exhilarating attempt to reconstruct the argument and intellectual framework of Locke's political thinking and activity should be thought to represent the entire debate accurately.' (Spurr 1988, 567 n. 17) 'has also taken the view that Locke equated the dissolution of government with the state of nature [pp. 576–6]. Important opponents of this view include Dunn [1969, p. 181] and (...) Franklin [1978, p. 107].' (Levitin MPhil diss., p. 32). (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

Politics and Religion in the New Century contains a collection of philosophical reflections on the intersection of religion and the political in contemporary social, political and intellectual life. Based on new research, the essays raise questions about the contemporary philosophical engagement with religion that orientate it on its practical rather than metaphysical dimension. That is, its social, political and ethical significance. This collection provides important insights for those interested in: philosophy, religious studies, politics, human rights, globalisation, social theory, (...) ethics, sociology, political economy, government, anthropology, contemporary culture, and issues of justice and power generally. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of Margaret Cavendish's moral and political philosophy. In some respects Cavendish's theoury echoes Hobbes. However, although Cavendish agrees with Hobbes that morality is based on self-interest, she holds that morality derives from our natural desire for public recognition, not the desire for self-preservation. Via the desire for fame, self-love can motivate people to pursue virtue, which, for Cavendish, means establishing and maintaining a good government (in particular, absolute sovereignty). The paper explores how Cavendish thinks (...) such a government can be established and maintained. Cavendish's account of female virtue and its connection with honor and fame is also discussed. (shrink)

The dissertation seeks to characterize the style of government embodied in Adam Smith's vision of civil society. It is composed of two parts. The first, preparatory part develops a framework for offering a historically sensitive interpretation of Smith's works by drawing on and criticizing the treatment of the eighteenth century in the work of several contemporary political theorists and historians of political thought. Part II gives the full-fledged interpretation of Smith's thought, based on both detailed textual interpretation and broad (...) contextual juxtaposition. Smith's highly systematic knowledge of the governance of conduct in civil society forms an innovative response to a political problem first articulated in sixteenth-century raison d'etat, reformulated in seventeenth-century natural jurisprudence, the eighteenth-century discourse of polite sociability and its Mandevillean critique, and posed in acute form by Hume. The problem was how to secure the survival, and enhance the strength, of the political order under conditions both of international military-commercial competition and potentially devastating internal social conflict that could eventuate in the kinds of civil wars that wracked the seventeenth century. ;Accepting Hume's reduction of civil society to an immanent plane devoid of providential guarantee of social harmony, Smith shows, in a first moment, how individuals in civil society are able to govern themselves freely and naturally, and how social order is produced and reproduced naturally. The sympathetic sociability and the natural development of the individual's conscience and sense of duty depicted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the commercial society depicted in the Wealth of Nations seem to obviate the need for invasive political governance. To this extent, Smith's "system of natural liberty" entails a minimal style of governance, oriented around the negative activity of administering justice, that is, of protecting individuals' rights by preventing and punishing injustice. However, Smith observes that the contemporary form of civil society necessarily produces among those he calls "the labouring poor," who constitute "the great body of the people," the very forces of "faction" and "fanaticism" that threaten to destroy political authority and social tranquillity. In response, Smith theorizes a more minute, controlling style of governance, oriented around the positive activity of forming and reforming the unruly lower ranks through habituation to a condition of orderliness, discipline and moderation. Smith takes up a series of existing practices for moderating conduct and forming character---practices embodied in educational, military, religious, manufactory and even recreational institutions---and projects them into an overall governmental strategy, theoretically unifying them by means of the jurisprudential category of police. Commerce, polite sociability, the self-governing individual, the practice of justice, the stability of government---in short, civil society as such---turn out to be dependent on the effective subjection of the great body of the people to police institutions. In Smith's comprehensive picture of civil society and government, justice and police represent not an ideal for civil society and its unfortunate but merely de facto subversion, respectively, but rather two ideals of civil society which exist in a relationship of uneasy complementarity. (shrink)

Zhu, Cheng 朱承, Governing the Mind and Governing the World: The Political Dimension of W ang Yangming’s Philosophy 治心與治世——王陽明哲學的政治向度 Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9194-x Authors Yun Huang, College of Political Science and Law, Jiangxi Normal University, 99 Ziyang Ave, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province 330022, China Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 4.

This essay is a contribution to the field of institutional studies in that it treats the State as a substantial phenomenon, composed of institutions that require analysis in their own right. Here, the focus is on the political form of African states from the 1960s to the 1980s. On the one hand, I will follow Bourdieu here in insisting that the study of government demands that we know something of the history of political thought (la pensée politique). This simple (...) observation is seldomly applied when it comes to politics in postcolonial Africa. On the other, I use Peter Wagner´s concept of modernity to show that struggles against colonialism and Imperialism and the pursuit of self-determination for African and Asian peoples are unambiguously struggles against domination and for autonomy. The emergence of Third World nationalism (and the Non-Aligned Movement) is an event, therefore, firmly in modernity. So too is the phenomenon of the One-party state in Africa. (shrink)

One of the least understood aspects of the world-wide “greening of markets” is the emergence of local “ethical marketplaces” and the subset of alternative business models described as “ethical businesses.” But previous research has demonstrated the ability of local politicians to encourage their regions toward more ethical marketplaces. This paper explores the impact radical centrist third party representation has on the emergence of ethical businesses across Great Britain. To understand this relationship, we utilize a novel data set of organizations with (...) membership in Ethical Junction, the United Kingdom's largest network for ethical businesses. We use a zero-inflated Poisson regression to model the connection, and find a meaningful relationship, between third-party political representation on British local councils and the presence of ethical businesses within local authorities. This presents an example of the way in which radical political change may be part of a wider social movement toward greening markets. (shrink)

This first wave study of the Covid-19 pandemic investigates why the governments of different countries proceeded to lockdown at different speeds. We draw upon the literature on Corporate Governance Institutions (CGIs) to theorize that governments’ decision-making is undertaken in the light of prevailing beliefs, norms, and rules of the collectivity, as portrayed by the focal country’s CGIs, in their effort to maintain legitimacy. In addition, drawing on motivated cognition we posit that the government’s political ideology moderates this relationship because (...) decision-makers are biased when assessing the impact of lockdown on commerce. Running negative binomial regressions on a sample of 125 countries, we find that the more shareholder-oriented the CGIs, the slower the governmental response in shutting down the economy to protect from the pandemic. Moreover, the main relationship is stronger the more right-leaning the government’s ideology. Our study contributes to the research on corporate governance institutions and political ideology and illustrates how societal and ideological biases affect government decision-making, especially when important decisions about public welfare are taken with little information on hand. (shrink)

Competitive Governments, explores in a systematic way the hypothesis that governments are internally competitive, that they are competitive in their relations with each other and in their relations with other institutions in society which, like them, supply consuming households with goods and services. Breton contends that competition not only serves to bring the political system to an equilibrium, but it also leads to a revelation of the households' true demand functions for publicly provided goods and services and to the molding (...) of a link between the quantities and the qualities demanded and supplied and the tax prices paid for these goods and services. In the real world where information is costly, the links may not be first-best, but they will be efficient if competition is vigorous. (shrink)

The research paper entitled “Political and Economic Development in China and Russia During the Cold War,” focuses on the struggles made by the Chinese and Russian governments during the Cold War years for the improvement of economic situation of the two countries. By addressing such questions as the viability of the economic policies of Russia and China, the paper aims to bring to light the various methods used by the two governments to ensure improvement of the economic condition of the (...) state, as well as of its people. Effort has also been made to draw a critical analysis of the power struggles and confrontations within the two regimes and the influence of the same on the political and economic graph of the two states. The paper, therefore, discusses the political issues within the People’s Republic of China and Russia and the effects of these frictions on the overall political and economic condition of the country. Moreover, the paper is also an attempt to analyze the reasons why Chinese attempts at economic development were more fruitful than the efforts made by their Russian counterparts. (shrink)

Sir John Fortesque was a leading jurist in fifteenth-century England, and while his works are not rigorously philosophical or theoretical, they are a description and defense of English government at the crucial period when England was moving from medieval to modern times. One reason Fortesque’s work is so fascinating is the tension and contrast between medieval and modern ideas.

Humans have now amassed a sizable knowledge of widespread, nonconscious cognitive biases which affect our behavior, especially in social and economic contexts. I contend that a democratic government is uniquely justified in using knowledge of cognitive biases to promote pro-democratic behavior, conditionally justified in using it to accomplish ends traditionally within the scope of government authority, and unjustified in using it for any other purpose. I also contend that the government ought to redesign institutional infrastructure to avoid (...) triggering cognitive biases where it is not permitted intentionally to manipulate such biases and to optimize the effects of such biases where permissible. I shall use the United States of America as an example throughout, but my conclusions apply equally to any democracy which values the political autonomy of its populace. (shrink)

Larry Temkin draws on the work of Angus Deaton to argue that countries with poor governance sometimes rely on charitable giving and foreign aid in ways that enable them to avoid relying on their own citizens; this can cause them to be unresponsive to their citizens’ needs and thus prevent the long-term alleviation of poverty and other social problems. I argue that the implications of this “lack of government responsiveness argument” (or LOGRA) are both broader and narrower than they (...) might first appear. I explore how LOGRA applies more broadly to certain types of charitable giving in developed countries, with a focus on medical crowdfunding. I then highlight how LOGRA does not apply to charitable giving aimed at alleviating the suffering of the absolutely politically marginalized, or those especially vulnerable people to whom governments are never responsive. (shrink)

The Catholic Church assumed vast power and influence in early twentieth century Ireland based on political, social and religious developments in the course of the nineteenth century. The first Irish governments under Costello and de Valera were deferential in relation to the power and place of the Catholic Church in Irish life. The 1950s represented the final phase of the dominance of the Catholic Church. Since then, a wide variety of influences from emigration to the mass media to issues related (...) to family planning have undermined the social framework of Church dominance in Irish life. By highlighting the ideas and arguments of priests and prelates, this article summarizes the remarkable changes that have come to Ireland undermining the status and privilege of the Church in Irish politics and society. (shrink)

The reform of China’s housing system has gone through a complex historical process from private real estate before 1949 to public ownership and then partial privatization. These successive temporalities of housing rights can be seen as a concentrated expression of the social transformation process in China. This paper aims at emphasizing both process and structures, revealing a complex relationship between government, market and society, but also the characteristics of the regime behind the events and phenomena described.The research is based (...) on a longitudinal fieldwork and was conducted by a team of teachers and students from Tsinghua University. From the perspective of the politics and sociology of action, housing is the most important contributing factor for the quality of life; to safeguard legal residence rights as well as property rights means to safeguard human rights in the sense of rights of subsistence.Therefore, to safeguard legal residence rights and to pursue social justice are citizens’ most relevant political issues. (shrink)

Contains all the major political, philosophical and educational writings of William Godwin, one of the foremost philosophers of his age. His work on government and individual freedom, "Political Justice", made him the chief exponent of English radicalism in the latter half of the 18th century.

The essay confronts the classical forms of the government of social fears, elaborated in the course of modern and contemporary history, (in particular, national state and welfare systems)with the ongoing processes of economic and political globalization. The authors also discusses the question of the transformation of the subjective gaze, either individual and collective, regarding the historical time and in reference to the possible shift to a postmodern epoch.

In Playing Politics with Science, David B. Resnik explores the philosophical, political, and ethical issues related to the politicalization of science and ...

Nolan reviews three works describing the influence of ethics on modern international relations, namely Code of Peace: Ethics and Security in the World of the Warlord States ; The Age of Rights ; and Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs.

These essays represent the latest research of a number of prominent political theorists. The essays explore the role of government, the nature of public discourse and the obligations of citizens. Some examine the sources of our need for government, asking what form of government we should establish and whether a single form can be suitable for all societies. Some seek to discover the proper aims of government - asking, for example, whether government should promote equality (...) among its citizens or whether it should allow inequalities in the hope of raising everyone's level of well-being. Others explore government's role in ensuring citizens' autonomy and in protecting their rights to pursue their own interests and projects. Still others examine the processes through which policies are formulated and debated, asking what forms of public deliberation are likely to produce the best results. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Political liberals are primarily concerned with the roles played by the government and public schools in civic education. In policies related to religious schools, political liberals often use a strategy of regulation that aims to restrict religious schools. I argue that, although this strategy is effective in eliminating bad religious schools, it alone is unable to ensure that all (or most) reasonable citizens achieve full justification, which is a necessary condition for the stability of a just society. I, therefore, (...) suggest that this strategy should be supplemented with a strategy of promotion. This strategy implies that a government should use policies, such as tax exemption, subsidy, national prize, and advertisement, to encourage good religious schools that teach students to reconcile religious beliefs and political ideas. While the government remains neutral and offers a citizenship curriculum that teaches political ideas, religious schools teach theological beliefs that provide students with comprehensive reasons to affirm political ideas. This division of labor facilitates students from different religious backgrounds to attain full justification. Religious schools have often been regarded as posing a threat to cultural balkanization. It is, however, an overlooked grain of truth that religious schools could be essential cornerstones of a stable liberal democracy. (shrink)