Journal Article•
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
About: This article is published in Review of Metaphysics.The article was published on 1997-02-01 and is currently open access. It has received 2568 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Democracy.
Citations
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TL;DR: What lessons this approach has for anthropological conventions of naming and knowing as they relate to Indigenous histories are suggested, and how archaeological knowledge can be transformed into a digital platform within a community-based process are considered.
Abstract: Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, and relation. This paper presents an ontology of the Sq’ewlets Virtual Museum of Canada Website Project, a project t...
21 citations
Cites background from "Between Facts and Norms: Contributi..."
...This creation of an intentional ‘communicative space’ (Habermas, 1996) generates a heightened awareness of and need for intellectual property savvy....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe radio programs that include one-on-one interactions between a host and caller about current affairs, and reveal two formats: talk-back and phone-in.
Abstract: This article describes radio programs that include one-on-one interactions between a host and caller about current affairs. The description reveals 2 formats: talk-back and phone-in. Talk-backs are...
21 citations
Cites background from "Between Facts and Norms: Contributi..."
...13Shared language and norms are the basis of the community that a public sphere demands (Habermas, 1996)....
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...(13)Shared language and norms are the basis of the community that a public sphere demands (Habermas, 1996)....
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01 Jan 2008
21 citations
Cites background from "Between Facts and Norms: Contributi..."
...In this final case, the speaker makes a statement indicative of existential (what I have endeavoured to call scientific within the context of this dissertation) presuppositions of reality—either something existentially is or it is not (Habermas, 1996/1998)....
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30 Nov 2016
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine issues raised by social media's depiction, over recent years, as source of civic empowerment and radical socio-political change, and provide an interdisciplinary exploration and contextualization of these questions, and of how everyday social media practices may relate to users' knowledge of, engagement with, and participation in a shared public and political world.
Abstract: This research examines issues raised by social media's depiction, over recent years, as source of civic empowerment and radical socio-political change. The intensely publicized role of social networking sites at the onset of the 2011 Arab uprisings has served to support at times overly linear perspectives on the relationship between new media technologies and socio political change. Debates in the field have been limited by an over-emphasis on strategic and instrumental use of social media by political and cyber-activists to achieve pre-determined political outcomes. Less is currently known about the perspectives, experiences and motivations of more ordinary users as they learn to navigate politicised online spaces and to participate in the production, mediation and dissemination of content on social media. This research revisits Tunisia, the country where the Arab uprisings first started, to provide an inter-disciplinary exploration and contextualization of these questions, and of how everyday social media practices may relate to users' knowledge of, engagement with, and participation in a shared public and political world. The study focuses on developments in the country between January 2011 and December 2013, with specific focus on the social networking site Facebook, as it dominates social media use in Tunisia during this transitional period. By juxtaposing qualitative analysis, quantitative elements, and a chronological dimension, research findings highlight the complexity of social media's rapidly evolving role, from perceived source of civic empowerment, to contributor to social tensions and political polarization in the country. The research argues that the communicative conditions provided by social media, in this context, facilitates civic encounters and political communication, but equally that, by making individual and collective socio-political identities and positions more publicly visible and fixed, social media use also reinforces differences and undermines sociality, engendering complex negotiation processes and adaptive participative practices over time.
21 citations
Dissertation•
02 Jul 2015
Abstract: This thesis concerns the theoretical issues that arise in the application of the constitutional model known as the plurinational state, developed through the experience of such Western liberal democratic states as Canada, Spain and the United Kingdom, to non-Western contexts of national pluralism through the case study of Sri Lanka. There are two closely intertwined and complementary objectives to the thesis. Firstly, to provide a fresh analytical and prescriptive framework of understanding and potential solutions to the constitutionally unresolved problem of national pluralism in Sri Lanka that has so far only generated protracted conflict. Secondly and more importantly, to contribute in more general terms to the theoretical literature on plurinational constitutionalism by way of the comparative insights generated through applying the model to an empirical context that is fundamentally different in a number of ways to that from which it originally emerged. In this latter, comparative, exercise, there are three key empirical grounds of difference that are identified in the thesis. Firstly, the difference between the sociological character of nationalisms in the two contexts, defined at the most basic level by the civic-ethnic dichotomy; secondly, the different meanings of democratic modernity in the present, determined by colonial modernity and post-colonial ethnocracy; and thirdly, the differences in the substantive content of democracy as between liberal and nonliberal democracies. The thesis argues that the plurinational state may be adapted to have a role and relevance beyond Western conditions, by addressing the theoretical issues that arise from these divergences. In doing so, it seeks to demonstrate that ethnic forms of nationalism are not necessarily inconsistent with the plurinational logic of accommodation; that an exploration of pre-colonial history reveals indigenous forms of the state that are more consistent with plurinational ideals than the classical modernist Westphalian nation-state introduced by nineteenth century colonialism; and that plurinational constitutions may be based on a broader conception of democracy than political liberalism. Building on these discussions, the principal normative contribution of the thesis is the development of a constitutional theory for the accommodation of national pluralism that is based on the norm of asymmetry, as distinct from equality, between multiple nations within the territorial and historical space of the state. “Every generation must reinvent the wheel.” Walker Connor (1994) Ethnonationalism “Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.” John Stuart Mill (1861) Considerations on Representative Government “The greatest adversary of the rights of nationality is the modern theory of nationality. By making the state and the nation commensurate with each other in theory, it reduces practically to a subject condition all other nationalities that may be within the boundary.” Lord Acton (1862) Nationality “For centuries the Sinhalese and the Tamils have lived together in peace and amity. We have been governed by their kings and they by ours ... I put this question bluntly to my Tamil friends. Do you want to be governed by London or do you want, as Ceylonese, to help govern Ceylon? Shall the most ancient of our civilisations sink into the level of a dull and dreary negation? We all know and admire their special qualities. They are essential to the welfare of this Island, and I ask them to come over and help us.” The Rt. Hon. D.S. Senanayake (1945), Leader of the State Council, later first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon, moving a resolution of the State Council accepting the Soulbury Constitution “ The British, with their short-sighted policy, brought the two nations that existed for centuries together for the sake of trouble-free colonial rule. However, the nations resisted assimilation. They had the idea that like the English, Scots and the Welsh, in Ceylon also there would be a new nation-state at the expense of one or the other. That did not happen. They didn’t have any idea other than the unitary system. They did not think at all whether it would be suitable to a country where, unlike in the United Kingdom, the divisions are based on much [more] distinctive identities.” S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C., M.P. (1951), presidential address to the first national convention of the Tamil Federal Party “There is a growing tendency among political commentators to reject the idea of the United Kingdom as a unitary state, archetype of a nation-state. Instead, it is portrayed as a ‘union state’, emerging from prior unions of distinct kingdoms.” Professor Sir Neil MacCormick (1999) Questioning Sovereignty “Nationalism springs, as often as not, from a wounded or outraged sense of human dignity, the desire for recognition.” Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin (1996) The Sense of Reality “Nationalism reminds us that individuals fear being stateless;; liberalism tells us that they ought to fear the state they have created.” Yael Tamir (1997) The Land of the Fearful and the Free
21 citations
Cites background from "Between Facts and Norms: Contributi..."
...Welikala, ‘The Failure of Jennings’ Constitutional Experiment in Ceylon: How ‘Procedural Entrenchment’ led to Constitutional Revolution’ in Welikala (2012): Ch.3; and Welikala in Kumarasingham (forthcoming, 2015). 52 H. Kumarasingham (2013) A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power and the Parliamentary System in Post-Colonial India and Sri Lanka (London: I.B. Tauris): Ch.7. 53 See Welikala (2012): Chs.1,2,4,9,19. 54 See for e.g. K.W. Deutsch & W. Folz (Eds.) (1966) Nation Building (New York: Aldine-Atherton); S....
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...Welikala, ‘The Failure of Jennings’ Constitutional Experiment in Ceylon: How ‘Procedural Entrenchment’ led to Constitutional Revolution’ in Welikala (2012): Ch.3; and Welikala in Kumarasingham (forthcoming, 2015). 52 H. Kumarasingham (2013) A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power and the Parliamentary System in Post-Colonial India and Sri Lanka (London: I....
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...Sampanthan, ‘The Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (Federal Party) and the Post-Independence Politics of Ethnic Pluralism: Tamil Nationalism Before and After the Republic’ in Welikala (2012): Ch.24 at p.958. 147 As already noted, this is a process that has already occurred in advanced liberal democracies, and which Western plurinational constitutionalists have be able to regard as a given. 148 H. Kearney, ‘Four Nations or One?’ in B. Crick (Ed.) (1991) National Identities: The Constitution of the United Kingdom (Oxford: Blackwell): p....
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...Sampanthan, ‘The Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (Federal Party) and the Post-Independence Politics of Ethnic Pluralism: Tamil Nationalism Before and After the Republic’ in Welikala (2012): Ch....
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...Sampanthan, ‘The Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (Federal Party) and the Post-Independence Politics of Ethnic Pluralism: Tamil Nationalism Before and After the Republic’ in Welikala (2012): Ch.24 at p.958. 147 As already noted, this is a process that has already occurred in advanced liberal democracies, and which Western plurinational constitutionalists have be able to regard as a given. 148 H. Kearney, ‘Four Nations or One?’ in B. Crick (Ed.) (1991) National Identities: The Constitution of the United Kingdom (Oxford: Blackwell): p.4. 149 As I have noted in Chapter 4, this normative conception should be distinguished from the descriptive way in which ‘state-nation’ has been used elsewhere, e.g., M. Guibernau (1999) Nationalisms: The Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Polity Press): Ch....
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References
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TL;DR: In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing--and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves.
Abstract: With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing--and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained--or lost--by the decisions we make today.
4,002 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation, including who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action.
Abstract: The multifaceted challenges of contemporary governance demand a complex account of the ways in which those who are subject to laws and policies should participate in making them. This article develops a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation. Mechanisms of participation vary along three important dimensions: who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action. These three dimensions constitute a space in which any particular mechanism of participation can be located. Different regions of this institutional design space are more and less suited to addressing important problems of democratic governance such as legitimacy, justice, and effective administration.
1,526 citations
01 Dec 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the current debate about the nature of democracy and discuss the main theses of the approach called "deliberative democracy" in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forth by Jurgen Habermas.
Abstract: This article examines the current debate about the nature of democracy and discusses the main theses of the approach called 'deliberative democracy' in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forwardby Jurgen Habermas. While agreeing with them as regards to the need to develop a more of democracy than the one offered by the 'aggregative' model, I submit that they do not provide an adequate understanding of the main task of democracy. No doubt, by stating that democracy cannot be reduced to a question of procedures to mediate among conflicting interests, deliberative democrats defend a conception of democracy that presents a richer conception of politics. But, albeit in a different way thanthe view they criticize, their vision is also a rationalist one which leaves aside the crucial role played by 'passions' and collective forms of identifications in the field of politics. Moreover, in their attempt to reconcile the liberal tradition with the democratic one, deliberative democrats tend to erase the tension that exist between liberalism and democracy and they are therefore unable to come to terms with the conflictual nature of democratic politics. The main thesis that I put forward in this article is that democratic theory needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of 'agonistic pluralism' can help us to better envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today: how to create democratic forms of identifications that will contribute to mobilize passions towards democratic designs.;
1,338 citations
TL;DR: Public diplomacy, as the diplomacy of the public, not of the government, intervenes in this global public sphere, laying the ground for traditional forms of diplomacy to act beyond the strict negotiation of power relationships by building on shared... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The public sphere is the space of communication of ideas and projects that emerge from society and are addressed to the decision makers in the institutions of society. The global civil society is the organized expression of the values and interests of society. The relationships between government and civil society and their interaction via the public sphere define the polity of society. The process of globalization has shifted the debate from the national domain to the global debate, prompting the emergence of a global civil society and of ad hoc forms of global governance. Accordingly, the public sphere as the space of debate on public affairs has also shifted from the national to the global and is increasingly constructed around global communication networks. Public diplomacy, as the diplomacy of the public, not of the government, intervenes in this global public sphere, laying the ground for traditional forms of diplomacy to act beyond the strict negotiation of power relationships by building on shared...
936 citations
Book•
05 Oct 2012
TL;DR: Tweets and the Streets as mentioned in this paper examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest, arguing that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality.
Abstract: Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the "indignados" protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest. Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around "occupied" places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square or New York's Zuccotti Park. An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.
911 citations