The present monograph issue focuses on the 2011–2012 global wave of protests that began in Tunisia in 2011. This introductory article notes that two streams of mobilization can be distinguished in ...terms of the specific grievances they express, and the socioeconomic and political contexts in which they have emerged. The article argues, however, that despite these differences both threads find their antecedents in the increasing and widespread social and economic levels of inequality, which requires social movements theories to ‘bring political economy back’ in the analysis of mobilization. It is further argued that the various occupy movements that have emerged since 2011 constitute diverse manifestations of a new international cycle of contention. With its innovative and distinctive traits in terms of diffusion, coordination, action repertoires, frames, and types of activism, this new cycle seeks to both transform the economic system to provide greater equality, opportunities, and personal fulfillment and, simultaneously, to democratize power in more participatory ways.
Most theories of cross-national variation in charitable giving have been tested only on samples of countries of Western European culture; this paper applies these theories to 114 countries, including ...93 non-Western countries, using data from the Gallup World Poll. It finds strong support for economic and political theories of cross-national variation in charitable giving and partial support for religious and cultural theories. Theories effectively predict variation in giving in middle income non-Western countries but poorly predict variation in low-income non-Western countries. This suggests that economic development, not cultural or religious differences, separate non-Western countries from Western ones in patterns of giving behavior. La plupart des théories sur les écarts entre les dons de bienfaisance de divers pays ont été comparées à des échantillons de pays à culture ouest-européenne. Cet article applique ces théories à 114 nations, dont 93 non occidentales, à l'aide de données du sondage Gallup mondial. Il y décèle un fort appui pour les théories économiques et politiques d'écarts entre les dons de bienfaisance de divers pays et un appui partiel envers les théories religieuses et culturelles. Les théories prévoient efficacement les écarts entre les dons fournis par des pays non occidentaux à revenu moyen, tandis que les prédictions sont médiocres pour les pays non occidentaux à faible revenu. Cela suggère que le développement économique, et non les différences culturelles ou religieuses, distingue le comportement des pays non occidentaux des nations occidentales en matière de don de bienfaisance. Die Mehrzahl der Theorien zu länderübergreifenden Unterschieden bei gemeinnützigen Spenden wurde nur anhand von Stichproben aus Ländern mit westeuropäischer Kultur getestet. Dieser Beitrag wendet die Theorien auf 114 Länder, einschließlich 93 nicht-westlicher Länder, an, wobei Daten aus der Gallup World Poll zugrunde gelegt werden. Man sieht deutliche Belege für die ökonomischen und politischen Theorien zu länderübergreifenden Unterschieden bei gemeinnützigen Spenden und eine teilweise Bestätigung der religiösen und kulturellen Theorien. Die Theorien prognostizieren effektiv die Unterschiede im Spendenverhalten in nicht-westlichen Ländern mit mittlerem Einkommen, geben jedoch eine mangelhafte Prognose zu den Unterschieden in nicht-westlichen Ländern mit geringem Einkommen ab. Dies lässt darauf schließen, dass die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, und nicht die kulturellen oder religiösen Differenzen, nicht-westliche von westlichen Ländern im Bezug auf das Spendenverhalten unterscheiden. La mayoria de las teorías de variación transnacional en la donación benèfica han sido probadas solamente en muestras de países con cultura europea occidental; el presente documento aplica estas teorías a 114 paises, incluidos 83 países no occidentales, utilizando datos de la Encuesta Mundial Gallup. Se encuentra un fuerte soporte para las teorías económicas y políticas de variación transnacional en la donación benèfica y un soporte parcial para las teorías religiosas y culturales. Las teorias predicen de manera efectiva la variación en la donación en el caso de ingresos medios en países no occidentales pero predicen pesimamente la variación en países no occidentales con bajos ingresos. Esto sugiere que el desarrollo econmico y no las diferencias culturales religiosas, separan a los paises no occidentales de los occidentales en los patrones de comportamiento a la hora de realizar donaciones.
Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy, similar to most of his work, elicited fierce scientific debate. This article replicates some of the analyses proposed in its second edition (published in 2012) ...in the light of the critiques received by the first edition (published in 2009). It primarily examines the relationship between institutional setup and interest group representation, disentangling the effect of consensualism from that of corporatism on issues such as macroeconomic performance and governance capabilities. The article further deepens our understanding of the complex causal mechanisms connecting these variables, proposing a more sophisticated empirical investigation that emphasises selection effects and conjunctural causation.
In this paper, the author critically considers the reception of one of the greatest thinkers of modern Western civilization, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), analyzing his epochal works "History of ...Western Philosophy", "Wisdom of the West" and other writings. In addition to his other works in logic, mathematics and other scientific disciplines, I paid special attention to the political and legal dimension.
Social sciences, understood as critical and not neutral by nature, they should be equipped with specific competencies and sensivity. C. W. Mills these comptence define as sociological imagination – ...which is study of the relationship of history and biography, Giddens interpreted it as three basic senses: historical, anthropological, critical. The translation into political science would be a political theories imagination, it consist,, among over things like a: historicity of political phenomena, antisubstansialism, research self-awareness. Definition of political theories imagination I propose in the context of Wiktor Marzec’s paper Rebelion and Reaction, which is a study from field of historical sociology, it’s in itself a lot of inspiration for theorists of politics: research, theoretical and methodological. It is worth considering – in this context – fundamental categories of political science, like political subjectivity and the political, also revalidate in their range.
This article seeks to contribute to the discourse on the politicization of voluntary simplifiers’ consumption patterns. Some scholars argue that voluntary simplifiers’ consumption practices are ...individualistic and escapist in nature, and therefore cannot be defined as political, and that they are likely to become such only if they organize for collective action. Conversely, we argue that voluntary simplifiers’ lifestyle is an individual political choice that should be analyzed using theories of political consumption. This article, based on interviews with voluntary simplifiers in Israel, identifies four characteristics of voluntary simplifiers that attest to their political nature: (1) multidimensional political discourse, (2) embracement of a holistic and uncompromising lifestyle of simplicity, (3) lifestyle changes as ongoing political process, and (4) the desire to exert influence. We therefore argue that voluntary simplifiers are not only political, but they represent a clear-cut instance of noninstitutionalized political activity realized through individual practices in the private realm.
MADDENING STATES Aretxaga, Begoña
Annual review of anthropology,
01/2003, Volume:
32, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Despite transformations in the character of the state in an age of
globalization, news of its demise is certainly exaggerated. Even as operations
of state (or state-like) power exceed the boundaries ...of the nation-state to be
deployed by actors such as transnational nongovernmental organizations, private
corporations, guerrilla groups, or narcotraffickers, the state form shows
remarkable tenacity and adaptability. Invested with a kind of meta-capital, the
state remains a crucial presence, a screen for political desires and
identifications as well as fears. This review addresses recent academic
reflection on the field of knowledge we call the state. It asks how the state
becomes a social subject in everyday life, examining the subjective experience
of state power and tracing its effects on territories, populations, and bodies.
Finally, it considers the ways violence, sexuality, and desire work in the
intimate spaces of state power.
Resentment is a recurrent problem for democracy. With its normative commitment to satisfying the principle of equal respect, democracy encourages and legitimates the expression of resentment against ...injustice, inequality and corruption. Yet, as John Keane’s recent analysis of democracy implies, rising tides of resentment can easily turn citizens against democratic governance and compel them to embrace so-called ‘democide’. The challenge of resentment has become all the more acute in the past 20 years since both established and transitional democracies began to take seriously the claims of resentment deriving from historical injustices. Democracies now also face the challenge of addressing resentments that cannot be undone and about which, or so some argue, little can be done. As Nietzsche famously observed, it is our impotence with respect to the past, the brute fact of time’s irreversibility, which makes us “gnash our teeth” and fuels what he calls ressentiment. The political physiognomy of ressentiment, as we shall see, is not pretty. If therefore contemporary democracies are to successfully undertake the necessary, yet difficult task of negotiating the risks and promises of resentment, they need to do so on the basis of a clear-eyed analysis of this phenomenon. This paper aims to clarify the relationship and differences between varying forms of resentment, and to analyze the political implications of these forms. It begins by setting out the difference between resentment, as conceived by philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, in particular Adam Smith, and Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment. Drawing on this brief intellectual history, it suggests that we can distinguish three different concepts in contemporary uses of the term resentment. For the sake of convenience I label these concepts moral resentment, socio-political resentment and ontological ressentiment. It suggests first that contemporary defenders of moral resentment plausibly demonstrate that this emotion is one of the pillars of justice. Second, it argues that if we accept a broader notion of collective responsibility, then we can also defend socio-political resentment as an important emotion for identifying and addressing collective and systematic injustices. However, the paper also maintains that socio-political resentment has the potential to trigger or galvanize ontological ressentiment. By carefully analyzing Nietzsche’s criticism of ‘slave’ ressentiment and his own alternative political ideals, it shows that ontological ressentiment gives rise to different kinds of totalitarian or perfectionist politics. While Nietzsche himself miscast legitimate socio-political resentment as a sign of physiological degeneracy, his analysis also illuminates how these legitimate grievances can transform into a radical envy and a deep hatred of existence that identifies virtue with victimhood. Nietzsche’s analysis alerts us to an important political problem for democracies: viz., the slide from socio-political resentment to ontological ressentiment. The paper concludes by suggesting that democratic political theory needs to investigate how to prevent socio-political resentment from sliding into ontological ressentiment to avoid the spread of dystopian political ideals and movements.
In starting from the simple question, 'Why didn't the field of constitutional studies ever generate a school of thought akin to TWAIL?', this article seeks to sketch the contours, obstacles and ...promises of Southern constitutionalism. In confronting the intra-, meta-, and extra-disciplinary challenges to such a project, the article defines the 'South' of Southern constitutionalism, not the 'South' of the developed 'North', but rather the 'South' of the modernist hopes in - and the post-modernist disappointments with - the templates of Western constitutional imagination.
: Policies explicitly aimed at changing people's behaviour and recasting state–citizen relations are becoming prevalent in the UK. New political rationalities of “co‐production”, “personalisation” ...and ‘soft” or “libertarian paternalism” seek to cultivate a relationship between the adaptive state and the active citizen which is increasingly pedagogical. Informing these new pedagogies of governing is research from behavioural economics, psychology and the neurosciences, from which policy strategists draw insights aimed at improving the effectiveness of behaviour‐changing interventions across a range of policy spheres. This paper develops perspectives from feminist economics, critical psychology and feminist political theory in order to demonstrate how such research offers a gendered account of human behaviour and thus is used to assert a conversely gender‐blind explanation of the legitimate role of the state in governing through behaviour change.
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