Showing papers on "Politics published in 2006"

Neoliberalism as exception

Abstract: Neoliberalism is commonly viewed as an economic doctrine that seeks to limit the scope of government. Some consider it a form of predatory capitalism with adverse effects on the Global South. In this groundbreaking work, Aihwa Ong offers an alternative view of neoliberalism as an extraordinarily malleable technology of governing that is taken up in different ways by different regimes, be they authoritarian, democratic, or communist. Ong shows how East and Southeast Asian states are making exceptions to their usual practices of governing in order to position themselves to compete in the global economy. As she demonstrates, a variety of neoliberal strategies of governing are re-engineering political spaces and populations. Ong’s ethnographic case studies illuminate experiments and developments such as China’s creation of special market zones within its socialist economy; pro-capitalist Islam and women’s rights in Malaysia; Singapore’s repositioning as a hub of scientific expertise; and flexible labor and knowledge regimes that span the Pacific. Ong traces how these and other neoliberal exceptions to business as usual are reconfiguring relationships between governing and the governed, power and knowledge, and sovereignty and territoriality. She argues that an interactive mode of citizenship is emerging, one that organizes people—and distributes rights and benefits to them—according to their marketable skills rather than according to their membership within nation-states. Those whose knowledge and skills are not assigned significant market value—such as migrant women working as domestic maids in many Asian cities—are denied citizenship. Nevertheless, Ong suggests that as the seam between sovereignty and citizenship is pried apart, a new space is emerging for NGOs to advocate for the human rights of those excluded by neoliberal measures of human worthiness.

Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership

Abstract: Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social co-operation. The idea of the social contract - especially as developed in the work of John Rawls - is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship - education, health care, political rights and liberties - to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of non-human animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of 'capabilities.' She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political co-operation and the nature of political principles - and to look to a future of greater justice for all.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Abstract: This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentive to overthrow it. These processes depend on (1) the strength of civil society, (2) the structure of political institutions, (3) the nature of political and economic crises, (4) the level of economic inequality, (5) the structure of the economy, and (6) the form and extent of globalization.

Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order

Abstract: Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Global Shadows: Africa and the World 1 1. Globalizing Africa? Observations from an Inconvenient Continent 25 2. Paradoxes of Sovereignty and Independence: "Real" and "Pseudo-" Nation-States and the Depoliticization of Poverty 50 3. De-moralizing Economics: African Socialism, Scientific Capitalism, and the Moral Politics of Structural Adjustment 69 4. Transnational Topographies of Power: Beyond "the State" and "Civil Society" in the Study of African Politics 89 5. Chryalis: The Life and Death of the African Renaissance in a Zambian Internet Magazine 113 6. Of Mimicry and Membership: Africans and the "New World Society" 155 7. Decomposing Modernity: History and Hierarchy after Development 176 8. Governing Extraction: New Spatializations of Order and Disorder in Neoliberal Africa 194 Notes 211 References 229 Index 249

A Postcapitalist Politics

Abstract: Is there life after capitalism? In this creatively argued follow-up to their book The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It), J. K. Gibson-Graham offer already existing alternatives to a global capitalist order and outline strategies for building alternative economies. A Postcapitalist Politics reveals a prolific landscape of economic diversity-one that is not exclusively or predominantly capitalist-and examines the challenges and successes of alternative economic interventions. Gibson-Graham bring together political economy, feminist poststructuralism, and economic activism to foreground the ethical decisions, as opposed to structural imperatives, that construct economic "development" pathways. Marshalling empirical evidence from local economic projects and action research in the United States, Australia, and Asia, they produce a distinctive political imaginary with three intersecting moments: a politics of language, of the subject, and of collective action. In the face of an almost universal sense of surrender to capitalist globalization, this book demonstrates that postcapitalist subjects, economies, and communities can be fostered. The authors describe a politics of possibility that can build different economies in place and over space. They urge us to confront the forces that stand in the way of economic experimentation and to explore different ways of moving from theory to action. J. K. Gibson-Graham is the pen name of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, feminist economic geographers who work, respectively, at the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality, species membership.

Abstract: Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social co-operation. The idea of the social contract - especially as developed in the work of John Rawls - is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship - education, health care, political rights and liberties - to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of non-human animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of 'capabilities.' She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political co-operation and the nature of political principles - and to look to a future of greater justice for all.

Language Policy Hidden Agendas and New Approaches

Abstract: Policies concerning language use are increasingly tested in an age of frequent migration and cultural synthesis. With conflicting factors and changing political climates influencing the policy-makers, Elana Shohamy considers the effects that these policies have on the real people involved. Using examples from the US and UK, she shows how language policies are promoted and imposed, overtly and covertly, across different countries and in different contexts. Concluding with arguments for a more democratic and open approach to language policy and planning, the final note is one of optimism, suggesting strategies for resistance to language attrition and ways to protect the linguistic rights of groups and individuals.

Toward a Political Conception of Corporate Responsibility - Business and Society Seen from a Habermasian Perspective

Abstract: We review two important schools within business and society research, which we label positivist and post-positivist corporate social responsibility (CSR). The former is criticized because of its instrumentalism and normative vacuity, and the latter because of its relativism, foundationalism, and utopianism. We propose a new approach, based on J?rgen Habermas's theory of democracy, and define the new role of the business firm as a political actor in a globalizing society.

Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy

Abstract: 'Religion and politics', as the old saying goes, 'should never be discussed in mixed company.'And yet fostering discussions that cross lines of political difference has long been a central concern of political theorists. More recently, it has also become a cause celebre for pundits and civic-minded citizens wanting to improve the health of American democracy. But only recently have scholars begun empirical investigations of where and with what consequences people interact with those whose political views differ from their own. Hearing the Other Side examines this theme in the context of the contemporary United States. It is unique in its effort to link political theory with empirical research. Drawing on her empirical work, Mutz suggests that it is doubtful that an extremely activist political culture can also be a heavily deliberative one.

Party Policy in Modern Democracies

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Policy and Party Competition 1. Policy dimensions and political preferences 2. "Policy spaces" and models of party competition Part II. Measuring Policy Positions 3. The expert surveys as a measurement tool 4. Measurement issues: bias and error correction in expert survey results 5. The Dimensionality of policy spaces 6. Comparing patterns of party competition Part III. Data Appendices References Index

Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico

Abstract: 1. Equilibrium party hegemony 2. Structural determinants of mass support 3. Budget cycles under autocracy 4. The politics of vote-buying 5. Judging economic performance in hard times 6. Ideological divisions in the opposition camp 7. How voters choose and mass coordination dilemmas 8. Electoral fraud and the game of electoral transitions 9. Conclusion.

The end of the end of ideology

Abstract: The "end of ideology" was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that (a) ordinary citizens' political attitudes lack the kind of stability, consistency, and constraint that ideology requires; (b) ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational potency and behavioral significance; (c) there are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and conservative points of view; and (d) there are few important differences in psychological processes (or styles) that underlie liberal versus conservative orientations. The end-of-ideologists were so influential that researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years. However, current political realities, recent data from the American National Election Studies, and results from an emerging psychological paradigm provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology. Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement. Situational variables--including system threat and mortality salience--and dispositional variables--including openness and conscientiousness--affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties, and opinions. A psychological analysis is also useful for understanding the political divide between "red states" and "blue states."

Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six European countries compared

Abstract: This article starts from the assumption that the current process of globalization or denationalization leads to the formation of a new structural conflict in Western European countries, opposing those who benefit from this process against those who tend to lose in the course of the events. The structural opposition between globalization 'winners' and 'losers' is expected to constitute potentials for political mobilization within national political contexts, the mobilization of which is expected to give rise to two intimately related dynamics: the transformation of the basic structure of the national political space and the strategic repositioning of the political parties within the transforming space. The article presents several hypotheses with regard to these two dynamics and tests them empirically on the basis of new data concerning the supply side of electoral politics from six Western European countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland). The results indicate that in all the countries, the new cleavage has become embedded into existing two-dimensional national political spaces, that the meaning of the original dimensions has been transformed, and that the configuration of the main parties has become triangular even in a country like France.

The civil sphere

Abstract: Introduction PART I. CIVIL SOCIETY IN SOCIAL THEORY 1. POSSIBILITES OF JUSTICE 2. REAL CIVIL SOCIETIES: DILEMMAS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION Civil Society I Civil Society II Return to Civil Society I? Toward Civil Society III 3. BRINGING DEMOCRACY BACK IN: REALISM, MORALITY, SOLIDARITY Utopianism: The Fallacies of Twentieth-Century Evolutionism Realism: The Tradition of Thrasymachus Morality and Solidarity Complexity and Community Cultural Codes and Democratic Communication PART II. STRUCTURES AND DYNAMICS OF THE CIVIL SPHERE 4. DISCOURSES: LIBERTY AND REPRESSION Pure and Impure in Civil Discourse The Binary Structures of Motives The Binary Structures of Relationships The Binary Structures of Institutions Civil Narratives of Good and Evil Everyday Essentialism The Conflict over Representation 5. COMMUNICATIVE INSTITUTIONS: PUBLIC OPINION, MASS MEDIA, POLLS, ASSOCIATIONS The Public and Its Opinion The Mass Media Public Opinion Polls Civil Associations 6. REGULATIVE INSTITUTIONS (1): VOTING, PARTIES, OFFICE Civil Power: A New Approach to Democratic Politics Revisiting Thrasymachus: The Instrumental Science of Politics Constructing and Destructing Civil Power (1): The Right to Vote and Disenfranchisement Constructing and Destructing Civil Power (2): Parties, Partisanship, and Election Campaigns Civil Power in the State: Office as Regulating Institution 7. REGULATIVE INSTITUTIONS (2): THE CIVIL FORCE OF LAW The Democratic Possibilities of Law Bracketing and Rediscovering the Civil Sphere: The Warring Schools of Jurisprudence The Civil Morality of Law Constitutions as Civil Regulation The Civil Life of Ordinary Law Legalizing Social Exclusion: The Antidemocratic Face of Law 8. CONTRADICTIONS: UNCIVILIZING PRESSURES AND CIVIL REPAIR Space: The Geography of Civil Society Time: Civil Society as Historical Sedimentation Function: The Destruction of Boundary Relations and Their Repair Forms of Boundary Relations: Input, Intrusion, and Civil Repair PART III. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CIVIL SPHERE 9. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS CIVIL TRANSLATIONS The Classical Model The Social Science of Social Movements (1): Secularizing the Classical Model The Social Science of Social Movements (2): Inverting the Classical Model The Social Science of Social Movements (3): Updating the Classical Model Displacing the Classical Model: Rehistoricizing the Cultural and Institutional Context of Social Movements Social Movements as Translations of Civil Societies 10. GENDER AND CIVIL REPAIR: THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD THROUGH M/OTHERHOOD Justifying Gender Domination: Relations between the Intimate and Civil Spheres Women's Difference as Facilitating Input Women's Difference as Destructive Intrusion Gender Universalism and Civil Repair The Compromise Formation of Public M/otherhood Public Stage and Civil Sphere Universalism versus Difference: Feminist Fortunes in the Twentieth Century The Ethical Limits of Care 11. RACE AND CIVIL REPAIR (1): DUALITY AND THE CREATION OF A BLACK CIVIL SOCIETY Racial Domination and Duality in the Construction of American Civil Society Duality and Counterpublics The Conditions for Civil Repair: Duality and the Construction of Black Civil Society Duality and Translation: Toward the Civil Rights Movement 12. RACE AND CIVIL REPAIR (2): THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND COMMUNICATIVE SOLIDARITY The Battle over Representation: The Intrusion of Northern Communicative Institutions Translation and Social Drama: Emotional Identification and Symbolic Extension The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Martin Luther King and the Drama of Civil Repair 13. RACE AND CIVIL REPAIR (3): CIVIL TRAUMA AND THE TIGHTENING SPIRAL OF COMMUNICATION AND REGULATION Duality and Legal Repair The Sit-In Movement: Initiating the Drama of Direct Action The New Regulatory Context The Freedom Rides: Communicative Outrage and Regulatory Intervention Failed Performance at Albany: Losing Control over the Symbolic Code Birmingham: Solidarity and the Triumph of Tragedy 14. RACE AND CIVIL REPAIR (4). REGULATORY REFORM AND RITUALIZATION The First Regulatory Repair: From Birmingham to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Second Regulatory Repair: Rewinding the Spiral of Communication and Regulation The End of the Civil Rights Movement: Institutionalization and Polarization PART IV. MODES OF INCORPORATION INTO THE CIVIL SPHERE 15. INTEGRATION BETWEEN DIFFERENCE AND SOLIDARITY Convergence between Radicals and Conservatives Recognition without Solidarity? Rethinking the Public Space: Fragmentation and Continuity Implications for Contemporary Debates 16. ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTHER The Plasticity of Common Identity Exclusionary Solidarity Forms of Out-Group Contact Nondemocratic Incorporation Internal Colonialism and the Civil Sphere Varieties of Incorporation and Resistance in Civil Societies 17. THREE PATHWAYS TO INCORPORATION The Assimilative Mode of Incorporation The Hyphenated Mode of Incorporation The Exception of Race: Assimilation and Hyphenation Delayed The Multicultural Mode of Incorporation 18. THE JEWISH QUESTION: ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE FAILURE OF ASSIMILATION Jews and the Dilemmas of Assimilative Incorporation Anti-Semitic Arguments for Jewish Incorporation: The Assimilative Dilemma from the Perspective of the Core Group Initial Jewish Arguments for Self-Change: The Assimilative Dilemma from the Perspective of the Out-Group The Post-Emancipation Period: Religious and Secular Modes of Jewish Adaptation to the Dilemmas of Assimilation New Forms of Symbolic Reflection and Social Response in the Fin de Siecle: The Dilemmas of Assimilation Intensify The Crisis of Anti-Semitic Assimilation in the Interwar Period: Resolving the Dilemmas of Assimilation by Going Backward 19. ANSWERING THE JEWISH QUESTION IN AMERICA: BEFORE AND AFTER THE HOLOCAUST The Failure of the Project: Jewish Exclusion from American Civil Society Responding to Nazism and Holocaust: America's Decision to be "With the Jews" Beyond the Assimilative Dilemma: The Postwar Project of Jewish Ethnicity Making Jewish Identity Public: The Multicultural Mode of Jewish Incorporation The Dialectic of Differentiation and Identification: A Crisis in American Jewry? 20. CONCLUSION: CIVIL SOCIETY AS A PROJECT NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Belonging and the politics of belonging

Abstract: My aim in this chapter is to outline an analytical framework for the study of belonging and the politics of belonging. It is important to differentiate between the two. Belonging is about emotional attachment, about feeling ‘at home’ and, as Michael Ignatieff (2001) points out, about feeling ‘safe’. In the aftermath of 7/7, the 2005 bombings in London, such a definition takes on a new, if problematic, poignancy. Belonging tends to be naturalised, and becomes articulated and politicised only when it is threatened in some way. The politics of belonging comprises specific political projects aimed at constructing belonging in particular ways, to particular collectivities that are, at the same time, themselves being constructed by these projects in very particular ways. An analytical differentiation between belonging and the politics of belonging is, therefore, crucial for any critical political discourse on nationalism, racism or other contemporary politics of belonging (see Yuval-Davis 2011). In this chapter, there is only space to outline some of the central features of such an analytical framework.

Principled Agents?: The Political Economy of Good Government

Abstract: 1 COMPETING VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT The issues This book Background Economic Policy Making Political Economy Incentives and Selection in Politics Concluding Comments 2 THE ANATOMY OF GOVERNMENT FAILURE Introduction Three Notions of Government Failure The Basic Model Government Failure Democratic Political Failures A Dynamic Model Government Failure in the Dynamic Model Responses to Political Failure Concluding Comments 3 POLITICAL AGENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY Introduction Elements of Political Agency Models The Baseline Model Extensions Discussion Concluding Comments 4 POLITICAL AGENCY AND PUBLIC FINANCE Introduction The Model Three Scenarios Implications Restraining Government Debt and Deficits Governments versus NGOs Competence Conclusions

Religion in the Public Sphere

Abstract: Religious traditions and communities of faith have gained a new, hitherto unexpected political importance since the epochmaking change of 1989–90. Needless to say, what initially spring to mind are the variants of religious fundamentalism that we face not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Southeast Asia, and in the Indian subcontinent. They often lock into national and ethnic conflicts, and today also form the seedbed for the decentralized form of terrorism that operates globally and is directed against the perceived insults and injuries caused by a superior Western civilization. There are other symptoms, too. For example, in Iran the protest against a corrupt regime set in place and supported by the West has given rise to a veritable rule of priests that serves other movements as a model to follow. In several Muslim countries, and in Israel as well, religious family law is either an alternative or a substitute for secular civil law. And in Afghanistan (and soon in Iraq), the application of a more or less liberal constitution must be limited by its compatibility with the Sharia. Likewise, religious conflicts are squeezing their way into the international arena. The hopes associated with the political agenda of multiple modernities are fueled by the cultural self-confidence of those world religions that to this very day unmistakably shape the physiognomy of the major civilizations. And on the Western side of the fence, the perception of international relations has changed in light of the fears of a ‘clash of civilizations’—‘the axis of evil’ is merely one prominent example of this. Even Western intellectuals, to date self-critical in this regard, are starting to go on the offensive in their response to the image of Occidentalism that the others have of the West. Fundamentalism in other corners of the earth can be construed, among other things, in terms of the long-term impact of violent colonization and failures in decolonization. Under unfavorable circumstances, capitalist modernization penetrating these societies from the outside then triggers social uncertainty and cultural upheavals. On this reading, religious movements process the radical changes in social structure and cultural dissynchronies, which under conditions of an accelerated or failing modernization the individual may experience as a sense of being uprooted. What is more surprising is the political revitalization of religion at the heart of the United States, where the dynamism of modernization unfolds most successfully. Certainly, in Europe ever since the days of the French Revolution we have been aware of the power of a religious form of traditionalism that saw itself as counter-revolutionary. However, this evocation of religion as the

Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Policy, and NGO Activism in Europe and the United States: An Institutional‐Stakeholder Perspective

Abstract:  Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an increasingly pervasive phenomenon on the European and North American economic and political landscape. In this paper, we extend neo-institutional and stakeholder theory to show how differences in the institutional environments of Europe and the United States affect expectations about corporate responsibilities to society. We focus on how these differences are manifested in government policy, corporate strategy, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) activism towards specific issues involving the social responsibilities of corporations. Drawing from recent theoretical and empirical research, and analysis of three case studies (global warming, trade in genetically modified organisms, and pricing of anti-viral pharmaceuticals in developing countries), we find that different institutional structures and political legacies in the US and EU are important factors in explaining how governments, NGOs, and the broader polity determine and implement preferences regarding CSR in these two important world regions.

The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU

Abstract: The book critically engages with theoretical developments in international relations and security studies to develop a fresh conceptual framework for studying security. Contents 1. Politics of insecurity, technology and the political 2. Security framing: the question of the meaning of security 3. Displacing the spectre of the state in security studies: From referent objects to techniques of government 4. Securitizing migration: Freedom from existential threats and the constitution of insecure communities 5. European integration and societal insecurity 6. Freedom and security in the EU: A Foucaultian view on spill-over 7. Migration, securitization and the question of political community in the EU 8. De-securitizing migration: Security knowledge and concepts of the political 9. Conclusion: the politics of framing insecurity

The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems

Abstract: On any given day, policymakers are required to address a multitude of problems and make decisions about a variety of issues, from the economy and education to health care and defense. This has been true for years, but until now no studies have been conducted on how politicians manage the flood of information from a wide range of sources. How do they interpret and respond to such inundation? Which issues do they pay attention to and why? Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner answer these questions on decision-making processes and prioritization in "The Politics of Attention". Analyzing fifty years of data, Jones and Baumgartner's book is the first study of American politics based on a new information-processing perspective. The authors bring together the allocation of attention and the operation of governing institutions into a single model that traces public policies, public and media attention to them, and governmental decisions across multiple institutions. "The Politics of Attention offers a groundbreaking approach to American politics based on the responses of policymakers to the flow of information. It asks how the system solves, or fails to solve, problems rather than looking to how individual preferences are realized through political action.

Introduction: The International Diffusion of Liberalism

Abstract: Political scientists, sociologists, and economists have all sought to ana- lyze the spread of economic and political liberalism across countries in recent decades+ This article documents this diffusion of liberal policies and politics and proposes four distinct theories to explain how the prior choices of some countries and inter- national actors affect the subsequent behavior of others: coercion, competition, learn- ing, and emulation+ These theories are explored empirically in the symposium articles that follow+ The goal of the symposium is to bring quite different and often isolated schools of thought into contact and communication with one another, and to define common metrics by which we can judge the utility of the contending approaches to diffusion across different policy domains+

American Nightmare Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization

Abstract: Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two distinct political rationalities in the contemporary United States. They have few overlapping formal characteristics, and even appear contradictory in many respects. Yet they converge not only in the current presidential administration but also in their de-democratizing effects. Their respective devaluation of political liberty, equality, substantive citizenship, and the rule of law in favor of governance according to market criteria on the one side, and valorization of state power for putatively moral ends on the other, undermines both the culture and institutions of constitutional democracy. Above all, the two rationalities work symbiotically to produce a subject relatively indifferent to veracity and accountability in government and to political freedom and equality among the citizenry.

What is Democratic Education

Abstract: Why does education matter in a democratic society and in particular, why does higher education matter? What should a democratic education be like, and who should decide how future citizens will be educated? These questions suggest that education is a political matter as much as it is about teaching and curriculum. Plato understood this when he placed education at the center of his construction of the ideal Republic. Thomas Jefferson also understood this from the earliest days of the democratic revolution in America. In 1779, Jefferson submitted a bill to the Virginia legislature that, had it passed, would have provided a system of education from primary school through university at public expense. His “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge” included a selection system through which young men (yes, only young men) of ability could rise through the system to university education regardless of family background and means.1 He offered three interconnected rationales. First, ignorance enslaved the mind, and only education could liberate people from the powers of tyrants and the superstitions of priests. Second, publicly supported education would break down the artificial, inherited aristocracy that was characteristic of Europe and would replace it with an egalitarian society. Finally, Jefferson also well knew the inherent risks when the people rule. The rule of the people can so easily degenerate into the tyranny of the many. It has been said that in a democracy, one depends on the wisdom of strangers. It is, therefore, in our mutual interest to support the education, including higher education, of citizens in a democracy, since our fate depends on them. This was a new and radical idea, because it rested on a new and radical conception of citizenship. How should we educate citizens for democracy? How we answer this question depends, in part, on what we think about democracy. Too often we identify democracy with such institutions as voting, representative government, the rule of law, constitutional protections of individual rights, and so forth. As important as these are, democracy is more than this. John Dewey observed that “a democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” in which we understand our own actions and interests in relation to shared concerns of other citizens.2 At its core, a democratic form of life is grounded in respect for individuals and our recognition of an obligation to come together with other individuals to make decisions about our common good. This is more difficult than it sounds in a pluralist society such as ours. We often bring very different backgrounds and moral and religious perspectives to many of the issues that we must decide as a people. Think, for example, of the war in Iraq, of abortion policy, or of support for embryonic stem cell research. Our disagreement about the best policy is often based on fundamental differences in basic moral and political values—on different views about America’s role in the world, for example, or the right to life vs. right to choice, or when life begins. In a pluralist democracy, can anyone legitimately claim to be in possession of the truth of the matter and declare that opposing views are false? Plato wanted a philosopher king—someone who had ultimate wisdom—to rule. But in a democracy, the people rule (which is why Plato disliked democracy). And in a pluralistic democracy, the people often disagree about fundamental values, yet we still must make decisions that bind us all. Political philosopher Benjamin Barber once observed that “democracy begins where certainty ends.” 3 For him, the political world is necessarily uncertain; a world in which reasonable people can come to very different conclusions, a world in which we must recognize that other citizens have different values and also recognize the fallibility of our own best judgments. How should citizens and future citizens be educated for the challenges of a pluralistic democracy?

Unpacking cosmopolitanism for the social sciences : a research agenda

Abstract: This article calls for a re-conceptualization of the social sciences by asking for a cosmopolitan turn. The intellectual undertaking of redefining cosmopolitanism is a trans-disciplinary one, which includes geography, anthropology, ethnology, international relations, international law, political philosophy and political theory, and now sociology and social theory. Methodological nationalism, which subsumes society under the nation-state, has until now made this task almost impossible. The alternative, a 'cosmopolitan outlook', is a contested term and project. Cosmopolitanism must not be equalized with the global (or globalization), with 'world system theory' (Wallerstein), with 'world polity' (Meyer and others), or with 'world-society' (Luhmann). All of those concepts presuppose basic dualisms, such as domestic/foreign or national/international, which in reality have become ambiguous. Methodological cosmopolitanism opens up new horizons by demonstrating how we can make the empirical investigation of border crossings and other transnational phenomena possible.

The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global

Abstract: The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. By Virginia Held. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 220p. $45. In her latest book, Virginia Held elaborates on themes from previously published articles to explicate and defend the ethics of care. For those unfamiliar with this well-developed tendency of feminist thought, she reviews its evolution from the 1980s writings of Sara Ruddick, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings to the more recent work of theorists including, among many others, Eva Kittay, Annette Baier, Joan Tronto, and Selma Sevenhuijsen. Held also underlines the differences between the ethics of care and dominant moral and political perspectives, including Kantian universalism, utilitarianism, liberal contract theory, and virtue theory. She proposes that care is, compared with justice, the more basic value, on the grounds that society can exist without the latter but not without the former. She recommends that men and women participate equally in care activities; that care infuse citizen as well as familial relations; and that society beat back the imperializing thrust of the market ethos and the conflict-mongering thrust of the militarized state to improve the well-being of children, the elderly, the sick and disabled, the community, culture, the environment, and deprived regions of the world.

In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism

Abstract: Forward David Harvey Part 1 The Production of Urban Natures and Urban Political Ecology 1. Introduction Erik Swyngedouw, Nik Heynen and Maria Kaika 2. Sylvan City: The social production of urban nature Eliza Darling and Neil Smith 3. Urbanizing Political Ecology: A perspective from Toronto Roger Keil and Julie-Anne Bourdreau Part 2: Urban Metabolisms 4. Circulations and Metabolism: Hybrid natures and cyborg cities Erik Swyngedouw 5. The Desire to Metabolize Nature Stuart Oliver 6. Cyborg Urbanization: Water, urban infrastructure and the modern city Matthew Gandy 7. Monuments, Medians and Metabolims: Contradictions inherent to the appropriation of Avenida De La Reforma's built environment for consumption Nik Heynen 8 Clogging up the City: The metabolism of fat in bodies, sewers and cities Simon Marvin and Will Medd 9. Urban Metabolism as Target: Contemporary war as forced demodernisation Stephen Graham Part 3: The Ecology of Urban Politics 10. Transnational Alliances and Global Politics: New geographies of urban environmental justice struggles David N Pellow 11. Constructing Scarcity and Sensationalising Water Politics: 170 days that shook Athens Maria Kaika 12. Dead Spaces in the City of Extremes: Observations from the great Chicago heat wave Eric Klinenberg 13. Reconnecting with the Means of Existence in Durban Alex Loftus 14. Looking at the Public/Private Water Debate in South Africa Through the Prism of an Urban Political Ecology Framework Laila Smith 15. Turfgrass Subjects: The political economy of suburban lawn monoculture Paul Robbins 16. At the Edge: Fragmented ecologies in Philadelphia Alec Brownlow Conclusions and the Way Forward Erik Swyngedouw, Nik Heynen and Maria Kaika

The Oxford handbook of political economy

Abstract: I. VOTERS, CANDIDATES, AND PRESSURE GROUPS II. LEGISLATIVE BODIES III. INTERACTION OF THE LEGISLATURE, PRESIDENT, BUREAUCRACY AND THE COURTS IV. CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY V. SOCIAL CHOICE VI. PUBLIC FINANCE AND PUBLIC ECONOMICS VII. POLITICS AND MACROECONOMICS VIII. DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM IX. HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND NON-DEMOCRATIC REGIMES X. INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY XI. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND CONFLICT XII. METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES XIII. OLD & NEW

Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability

Abstract: It has long been recognized that the media play an essential role in government accountability. However, even in the absence of censorship, the government may in‡uence news content by maintaining a “cozy” relationship with the media. This paper develops a model of democratic politics in which media capture is endogenous. The model o¤ers insights into the features of the media market that determine the ability of the government to exercise such capture and hence to in‡uence political outcomes.

It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics

Abstract: Activists and politicians have long recognized the power of a good story to move people to action. In early 1960, four black college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave. Within a month, sit-ins spread to thirty cities in seven states. Student participants told stories of impulsive, spontaneous action - this despite all the planning that had gone into the sit-ins. "It was like a fever," they said. Francesca Polletta's "It Was Like a Fever" sets out to account for the power of storytelling in mobilizing political and social movements. Drawing on cases ranging from sixteenth-century tax revolts to contemporary debates about the future of the World Trade Center site, Polletta argues that stories are politically effective not when they have clear moral messages, but when they have complex, often ambiguous ones. The openness of stories to interpretation has allowed disadvantaged groups, in particular, to gain a hearing for new needs and to forge surprising political alliances. But, popular beliefs in America about storytelling as a genre have also hurt those challenging the status quo. A rich analysis of storytelling in courtrooms, newsrooms, public forums, and the United States Congress, "It Was Like a Fever" offers provocative new insights into the dynamics of culture and contention.

The Politics of Talk Coming to Terms with the ‘New’ Scientific Governance

Abstract: Talk of public dialogue and engagement has become fashionable internationally, and particularly within Europe. Building especially upon recent British experience, this paper argues that ‘public talk’ (that is, talk both by and about the public) represents an important site for science and technology studies analysis. The relationship between ‘new’ and ‘old’ approaches to scientific governance is considered. Drawing upon a series of official reports, and also the GM Nation? public debate over genetically modified food, the paper suggests that, rather than witnessing the emergence of a new governance paradigm, the current approach can more accurately be portrayed as an uneasy blend of ‘old’ and ‘new’ assumptions. Eschewing a straightforward normative account, the paper explores the social construction of public talk, the relationship between talk and trust, the search for the ‘innocent’ citizen, and the pursuit of social consensus. Current initiatives should not simply be criticized for their inadequacies, ...