Showing papers on "Elitism published in 2000"

Values in sport : elitism, nationalism, gender equality and the scientific manufacture of winners

Abstract: Part I. Elitism 1. Is Our Admiration or Sports Heroes Fascistoid? Torbjorn Tannsjo 2. Sports, Fascism and the Market Claudio Tamburrini 3. The Logic of Progress and the Art of Moderation in Competitive Sports Sigmund Loland Part II. Nationalism 4. Sports as the Moral Discourse of Nations William J. Morgan 5. A Justification of Moderate Patriotism in Sport Nicholas Dixon 6. Patriotism in Sports and in War Paul Gomberg Part III. Gender Equality 7. Against Sexual Discrimination in Sports Torbjorn Tannsjo 8. Gender Verification in Competitive Sport: Turning from Research to Action Berit Skirstad 9. On the Definition of 'Woman' in the Sport Context - with an Appendix on Tannsjo's Radical Proposal Angela J. Schneider Part IV. The Rules of the Game 10. Against Chance: A Casual Theory of Winning in Sports Gunnar Breivik 11. Justice and Game Advantage in Sporting Games Sigmund Loland 12. Spoiling: An Indirect Reflection of Sport's Moral Imperative Graham McFee Part V. The Scientific Manufacturing of Winners 13. A Philosophical Overview of the Arguments on Banning Doping in Sport Angela J. Schneider and Robert B. Butcher 14. What is Wrong With Doping? Claudio Tamburrini 15. Selected Champions Christian Munthe

The Future of the University and the University of the Future: Evolution of Ivory Tower to Entrepreneurial Paradigm

Abstract: Considers the emerging "entrepreneurial university" as the center of knowledge production and analysis in a knowledge-based economy. As society and industry become more and more knowledge-based, the role of the university is shifting from academic development to the economic development tied to intellectual property. This "third mission" of the university - beyond the missions of teaching and research - has been highly contested by some critics who believe it takes away from the pursuit of education, particularly as a means of evaluating and critiquing society. Nevertheless, evidence shows that the entrepreneurial university is steadily gaining ground in the United States, as well as in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Using the "triple-helix" model (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1999) of university-industry-government - in which knowledge plays a central rather than a subsidiary role - the university takes over the role of producer of knowledge from industry or the government. Hence, the university becomes the new, active center of innovation. The triple-helix model leads to institutionalized collaborations and initiatives between universities and the industrial and governmental spheres, which in turn leads to the creation of new, trilateral organizations and centralization within academia. The analysis concludes that various linkages across the university, government, and industry are changing the infrastructure of modern society, so that the university is, among other things, turning away from intellectual elitism to encompass mass industry. (CJC)

Complexity, cultural pluralism and democracy: collective action in the public space

Abstract: This article is an attempt to show the political consequences of the forms of collective action introduced by social movements and their contribution to the formulation of a new conception of democratic practice. It is our contention that the current crisis faced by democracy is linked to the lack of a space capable of dealing with both social complexity and cultural pluralism. We argue that a public space for face-to-face interaction among citizens differentiated from the state allows us to consider this issue in a different light. Publicity allows the incorporation into democratic politics of demands for cultural integration by preserving a space for their direct presentation. Publicity also avoids a reductionist conception of political claims in which, in order for representation to take place, there is the need to reduce the plurality of the cultural demands through the aggregation of political majorities. In this article we show the tension between the public space and political representation, and a...

Equality and elitism in Arendt

Abstract: Hannah Arendt's idea of freedom can be said to have two main sources, the first being the Greek polis and the Roman res publica ; the second St. Augustine and the Christian idea of a spontaneous new beginning ( creatio ex nihilo ). These two notions of freedom, which Arendt attempts to combine in her political theory, are not totally compatible. The first or republican idea of freedom is elitist in its content and presuppositions, whereas the second or Augustinian concept has an egalitarian core. This chapter examines both ideas, with specific attention to the tensions they generate in Arendt's work (section I). In the second (shorter and concluding) section, I show how Arendt's theory of political freedom is embedded in a narrative philosophy of history about the decline of man as a political animal, a narrative derived, for the most part, from the first (Graeco-Roman and elitist) concept of freedom. This concept of freedom also provides the normative basis for much of her critique of contemporary politics. We should, as a result, be somewhat skeptical about certain elements of this critique (Arendt's entirely negative view of politics as the quest for social justice, for example) even as we utilize her profounder insights about the nature of politics and freedom.

Élitism to Inclusion - Some Developmental Tension

Abstract: Higher education as a system is a recent phenomenon. In the developmental process, particularly over the past 35 years, tensions have built up which are grounded in competing beliefs and aspirations about the form and shape of higher education. This paper examines some of the competing tensions and evaluates some of the implications of progressing from an elite to a universal higher education system. The pressure by Government to raise standards and to provide an educated skill base to maintain a competitive edge in a global economy can be seen against an internal higher education world holding on to 'elite instincts and traditions'.

The Theory of Democratic Elitism Revisited: A Response to Vengroff and Morton

Abstract: Two questions have dominated the modern study of politics. How do political systems become democratic? And how, supposing they have managed to become democratic, do they manage to remain so? As yet, there is no agreement on the answer to the first question. For a generation, however, there has been consensus on a core part of the answer to the second. In democratic polities, political elites have come to consensus in support of democratic rights, and in times of political stress this elite consensus has served as a bulwark protecting citizens' liberties.

Regional Perspectives on Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A Re–examination of Democratic Elitism

Abstract: In The Clash of Rights , Paul. M . Sniderman, Joseph Fletcher, Peter Russell and Philip Tetlock have challenged the orthodox view of “democratic elitism” and “value consensus” with respect to support for civil rights and liberties. Based on analysis of Canadian attitudes toward the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Sniderman et al, found that support for rights claims varied more among elites than between elites and masses. They extend this finding to a hypothesis that competing political elites are prone to exploit disagreement over rights issues for purposes of partisan electoral advantage. They find that the Conservative officeholders are typically less supportive of rights claims, while New Democratic party and Parti Quebecois legislators tend to be more supportive. On most issues, the Liberals are (surprise!) in between. These findings lead to conclusions such as “the issue of bilingualism is political, not social.” More generally, Sniderman and his colleagues suggest that there is broad, evenly distributed support for rights among the Canadian public, and that conflict over rights is largely attributable to partisan competition among political leaders.

Au Contraire: In Praise of Elitism:

Abstract: In a recent edition of the Duke Gifted Letter, a publication sponsored by the Talent Identification Program (TIP) at Duke University, I took part in a so-called “Expert's Forum” about the merits and flaws of the biggest educational misnomer of modern times: the “Theory” of Multiple Intelligences (MI), as proposed by Harvard researcher, Howard Gardner.

Elite Hotels: A Cultural Cachet:

Abstract: To date there has been a general paucity of literature supporting investigation of hoteliers who have recognised the value of creating an aura of elitism within and surrounding their hotels. Specif...

Democratic theorizing in Taiwan: A reconstruction

Abstract: This study reconstructs Taiwan people's existing discursive structures on democracy by replicating Dryzek and Berejikian's Q methodological study of American democratic discourses. It finds that under the existing specific historical circumstances, Taiwan people's democratic attitudes manifest a complex, pluralistic and interrelated discursivity, in which at least five democratic discourses can be identified, namely democratic pragmatism, democratic communitarianism, democratic liberalism, democratic elitism and democratic populism. Yet, among these five discourses, there are a number of commonly held views. In particular, they all accept democratic pluralism, reject communism and violence, believe in the fallibility of state leaders and the necessity to limit government power, and are optimistic about the future democratic development in Taiwan. This broad consensus reflects the specific historical experience of Taiwan people's democratic pursuit on the one hand and provides a broad common ground for dia...

Power to the Voters

Abstract: I am, or try to be, a populist democrat. For decades, populism was largely invisible, barely a straw man, in the discourse of the law schools. Well-meaning ideologues of the governing class were accustomed to prescribe -- for the people-policies and institutional processes based on an assumption that government of and by the people is -- obviously and of course -- not to be trusted. Now, that is changing. Populism, today, is a recognized position in legal academia. The ideal is now embraced, its possible implications explored, by a growing band.(1) Its meaning is, to say the least, contested. At a minimum, though, my premise is that populism should involve taking popular sovereignty more seriously than has been the practice in legal discourse. More particularly, it ought to involve a renewed emphasis on the value of political equality which -- in negotiation with values of political freedom and political community -- constitutes the democratic idea. From this it follows that populism ought to involve renewed respect for majority rule as generally the fairest practical guarantor of political equality among persons as well as the most practical way of approximating popular sovereignty over time. If populism is imagined, above all, in terms of popular sovereignty and political equality, it may acquire a bite that cuts across and shakes up stultified left/right lines of "debate." By the same token, if notions of popular sovereignty and political equality are injected with a populist sensibility -- an acceptance and, more, an embrace of ordinariness: ranging from our own ordinariness (and so our deep equality) to the ordinariness of "the people"(2) -- these ideas may recover from their torpor of several long decades and acquire, at last, new critical vigor. What such a re-orientation yields is a back-to-basics approach to the revitalization of democracy. Let me sketch, in three steps, a few fundamental features of this approach. MASS POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: A GOOD IN ITSELF The most potent rationalizations for "governance" of the masses by enlightened elites are, nowadays, packaged as paeans to democracy. Against a backdrop of perfectionist premises, they insist that participation by the mass of real people in the real world of politics has value only if other conditions are met -- only if reality is radically transformed in one way or another. They deplore the inadequacy (even the "corruption") of democracy as we know it. And they conclude, regretfully of course, that the world is not yet safe for democracy. This line of argument must be rejected at the outset as a barrier, rather than a roadmap, to democratic revitalization. The most transparently naked rationalization focuses on outcomes of political processes. The political empowerment of ordinary people is good, so the argument goes, only insofar as its likely outcomes are good. Today, the argument continues, the masses tend to have "bad values" or, at the very least, a mistaken understanding of their own interests. Hence, bad outcomes. There are, sad to say, some who would call themselves populists who take this line. The assumption of these rationalizers of political elitism is that they know better and, so, that they and their ilk should "lead" -- be the "spokesmen" or "advocates" for -- ordinary people. For them, political equality is but an "idealistic" fantasy -- to be used, if at all, as a cynical smoke screen. A somewhat more subtle version of the argument focuses on the quality of political processes. The participation of the masses in politics is good, it asserts, only so long as the political process is otherwise a good one. Today, it continues, our political process is utterly spoiled -- poisoned by a few who, with clever thirty second spots, play on the ignorance, shortsightedness and emotions of the many. Thus, it concludes, the political influence of the many may have to be restricted. Again, there are self-styled populists who make this argument. …

Gide and Soviet Communism

Abstract: The political peregrinations of Andre Gide are emblematic of the pursuit of meaning through politics that many Western intellectuals engaged in during this century and especially during the 1930s and 1960s. More generally, as one of his biographers argues, he was “representative of the modern intellectual’s contradictory longing for individualist freedom and comforting submission to authority” (Guerard viii) as well as of “the isolation … , the sense of guilt, the schizoid anxiety of the modern intellectual—and his alternating impulses toward order and anarchy” (Guerard 13), to which one may add a combination of elitism and egalitarianism. Understanding Gide’s politics helps us understand the period and the writer, although of course the foolish political attitudes do not illuminate his nonpolitical writings, nor do they distract from his literary contributions.