Showing papers in "Behemoth : a Journal on Civilisation in 2009"
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TL;DR: In this paper, two important literary forms, namely, dystopias and jeremiads, are examined, which provide a strong collection of arguments for great caution about biotechnology.
Abstract: Scepticism and fear about biotechnology is widespread. It takes two important literary forms, namely dystopias and jeremiads. Neither is compelling in itself, but together they provide a strong collection of arguments for great caution. The dystopias examined here range from Aldous Huxley′s Brave New World to o two recent novels by Margaret Atwood. The Jeremiads range from C. S. Lewis in 1942 to Habermas and Fukuyama.
115 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how the bosses succeeded in controlling most means of political violence employed and were thereby able to advance their interests to an extraordinary extent, even though it weakened the state.
Abstract: Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by political violence. Targeted killings and physical harassment by vigilantes, death squads, private armed groups, para-military militias, the police or members of the armed forces as well as violent competition for political jobs cost hundreds of lives every year. One central anchor point of this broad range of violent actors and forms are the locally embedded political bosses. (Defective) democracy provides an ideal frame for the continuing competition between various segments of the highly fragmented elite. The paper shows how the bosses succeeded in controlling most means of political violence employed and were thereby able to advance their interests to an extraordinary extent. Upholding private control over means of violence furthered their interests as a political class even though it weakened the state.
21 citations
TL;DR: The authors traces the contours of this struggle over security-calculability, and how this genealogy has shaped the current tension between risk and uncertainty in ways not readily grasped by the idea of a risk society.
Abstract: Security associated with 'the state′ easily is imagined only in terms of a 'Hobbesian′ problematic of the transfer of rights to a sovereign. Yet internal to liberal government is a 'Benthamite′ concern with security as the provision of a calculable environment in which rational actors may plan. A central dilemma arises within liberalism over what are optimal levels and forms of calculability. Modernist government demands scientific predictability, universality and rationality. This clash with traditional liberal visions of individual freedom is envisaged as fundamentally incompatible with a future that is 'excessively′ calculable and thus not open to enterprise. Through an historical analysis of insurance, the paper traces the contours of this struggle over security-calculability, and how this genealogy has shaped the current tension between risk and uncertainty in ways not readily grasped by the idea of a 'risk society′.
16 citations
12 citations
TL;DR: The Colombian paramilitaries are perhaps the most notorious case of brutal violence committed against civilians with general support from both state and society as discussed by the authors, and a surprising amalgam of actors of which the paramilitary are comprised.
Abstract: Throughout Latin America, processes of democratization have coincided with increasing levels of violent crime, the privatization of justice and security, and widespread support for heavy-handed policing. The Colombian paramilitaries are perhaps the most notorious case of brutal violence committed against civilians with general support from both state and society. The article explores the surprising amalgam of actors of which the paramilitaries are comprised. It illustrates the way in which their development was shrouded in and facilitated by legal ambiguity, and distinguish their war tactic of targeting the civilians from the guerrilla’s strategy. Finally, it discusses the political success of the paramilitaries in terms of their land and wealth consolidation, their insertion into the political science, and their legal demobilization. It is suggested to conceive paramilitary violence not merely as havoc wrecked in the margins of the state, but as a central component of contemporary governance.
11 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines how the political paradigm of collective rights was redefined during the 1920s to produce a conceptual system of legal standards, and how successful efforts were in providing a legal foundation for the sociotheoretical concept of "Volksgruppe" (“ethnic group”).
Abstract: Following World War I, the League of Nations promoted a liberal system of minority rights conceived on the basis of individual rights and designed to provide human rights protection against discrimination. In reaction to this conception of minorities as deserving democratic protection, an alternate, ethnicallyoriented concept was developed in German-speaking territories, particularly in Germany and Austria, which was based on collective rights and whose goal was ethnically-based legislation (called “Volksgruppenrecht” or “ethnic-group law”). This political concept was gradually developed into a system of international standards. Supporters hoped that ethnically based law would replace international liberal-democratic law. This paper examines how the political paradigm of collective rights was redefined during the 1920s to produce a conceptual system of legal standards, and how successful efforts were in providing a legal foundation for the sociotheoretical concept of “Volksgruppe” (“ethnic group”).
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the conditions of differential impacts of rent on social structures and political behaviour call for an analysis of internal interest mediation, which is a basic element of the political economy of underdeveloped economies.
Abstract: Rents are a basic element of the political economy of underdeveloped economies. They hinder and often block the mechanism of social integration through gainful employment and veto the power of labour, which characterizes capitalist societies and the constitution of citizenship. The impact of rent on political structures is, however, ambiguous. Anomie is only one possible result. Hence the link between raw material exports and non-state violence is also ambiguous. Many societies, which are characterized by rents, have developed quite powerful mechanisms of keeping internal peace, possibly with limited participation. The conditions of differential impacts of rent on social structures and political behaviour call for an analysis of internal interest mediation.
7 citations
7 citations
TL;DR: A strong current in recent research relates to the transposition of phenomena of violence formerly observed outside the sphere of "the state" to post-Cold War phenomena now observed under the simultaneous conditions of globalisation and fragmentation of statehood as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Approaching anthropological research on violence means to approach a field of questions rather than of answers. It offers manifold perspectives on competing interpretations: comparative perspectives on a multitude of articulations between war and peace in small societies; on physiological and bodily practices of violence; on cultural, symbolic and cognitive patterns of violence; systemic channels and alternatives for violence derived from conflicts of interests; structural patterns with a perspective on relations between local violence; intermediate processes of inclusion/exclusion and over-arching political-economic relations. A strong current in recent research relates to the transposition of phenomena of violence formerly observed outside the sphere of “the state” to post-Cold War phenomena now observed under the simultaneous conditions of globalisation and fragmentation of statehood. Since anthropological research on violence derives its particular virtues from fieldwork, fresh ethnographic data and comparison, it breeds continuous antagonisms against reductive models. A continuous bone of contention here remains the issue of violence and cultural relativism.
6 citations
5 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the difficulties associated with historical placement and the detection of spatial mobility and temporary or seasonal settlement in the archaeological record are discussed in connection with questions concerning the origin of that very old life form.
Abstract: The geographical perspective is one possible view of a landscape which generally presents the ecological characteristics of the steppe in order to access an account of the steppe via its natural conditions and factors. Forms of nomadism as a “socio-ecological mode of culture” and spatial mobility as a “strategy of human existence” can be seen as ideas immanent to this region. In this context the difficulties associated with historical placement and the detection of spatial mobility and temporary or seasonal settlement in the archaeological record should be discussed in connection with questions concerning the origin of that very old life form.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse these representations equally on the basis of historiography, heroic poetry and archaeological material as sources of the nomadic influence on the history of the Migration period.
Abstract: During the European early and high Middle Ages the memory of the Migration period Hun ruler Attila was different and in flux. While Eastern Germanic groups in heroic poetry and historiography draw the picture of a noble and gift-giving king, Western Germanic tribes made him responsible for the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in the Middle Rhine area. For Latin authors of Late Antiquity he was a flagellum dei and an enemy of Christianity. In medieval Cologne Attila was said to have been the murderer of 11,000 virgins. This article shall analyse these representations equally on the basis of historiography, heroic poetry and archaeological material as sources of the nomadic influence on the history of the Migration period.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors stress the importance of the desire for autonomy with its consequences for threatening the authority of law and advocate that we recognize an existing institutional order actively and explicitly.
Abstract: The modern understanding of autonomy (at least in its strong version) often includes the idea of selflegislation. As was paradigmatically the case for the French Revolution, self-legislation was considered as ideally neither bound by tradition nor by existing institutions. But some contemporary political theorists of the bourgeois revolutions (including Hobbes and Burke) felt uneasy about the loss of order and therefore tried to dispense with the concept of autonomy altogether. This article reconstructs this unease and its relation to Habermas′ proposal of staging the desire for autonomy within an institutional setting. Habermas′ suggestion privileges the existing institutional order over the desire for autonomy. Against Habermas I stress the importance of the desire for autonomy with its consequences for threatening the authority of law. Against this threat, I advocate that we recognize an existing institutional order actively and explicitly.
TL;DR: In this article, the interactions between the Russian Empire and the nomadic tribes in the steppes of Central Asia were discussed, and the authors followed the implementation of the school models through the debate on sedentarisation.
Abstract: The article is about the interactions between the Russian Empire and the nomadic tribes in the steppes of Central Asia. Nomadic economies and culture were urged by the Russian colonial administration to change to the sedentary lifestyle of an agrarian society. The aim was to introduce the advantages of agrarian economies through agrarian schooling. This experiment failed however, and the permanent settlement of the Steppes was only successful after the education of Russian settlers. The article follows the implementation of the school models through the debate on sedentarisation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse five Eastern European History films that in one way or another are set in the steppe and suggest that there is an intricate connection between setting and narrative structure.
Abstract: Analysing five Eastern European History films that in one way or another are set in the steppe, this essay suggests that there is an intricate connection between setting and narrative structure. The historical “Steppe” appears as a projection screen that invites a conversion of the historical material into myths of utopian, or dystopian, content. Thus, the steppe movies under scrutiny deal with “struggles for order” in a very basal sense: that is, for order as such versus existential nothingness. This mythopoetic potential of the steppe topos appears to rely on the established and densely connoted meta-narrative of East vs. West, while its actualisation seems to be provoked by an encompassing consciousness of historical discontinuity.