Designs on nature Jasanoff, Sheila
2005, 2008., 20110627, 2011, 2005-01-01, 20050101
eBook, Book
Biology and politics have converged today across much of the industrialized world. Debates about genetically modified organisms, cloning, stem cells, animal patenting, and new reproductive ...technologies crowd media headlines and policy agendas. Less noticed, but no less important, are the rifts that have appeared among leading Western nations about the right way to govern innovation in genetics and biotechnology. These significant differences in law and policy, and in ethical analysis, may in a globalizing world act as obstacles to free trade, scientific inquiry, and shared understandings of human dignity.
This book is the first major account of political thought in twentieth-century Europe, both West and East, to appear since the end of the Cold War. Skillfully blending intellectual, political, and ...cultural history, Jan-Werner Mller elucidates the ideas that shaped the period of ideological extremes before 1945 and the liberalization of West European politics after the Second World War. He also offers vivid portraits of famous as well as unjustly forgotten political thinkers and the movements and institutions they inspired.Mller pays particular attention to ideas advanced to justify fascism and how they relate to the special kind of liberal democracy that was created in postwar Western Europe. He also explains the impact of the 1960s and neoliberalism, ending with a critical assessment of today's self-consciously post-ideological age.
The theme of care, one of the most significant theoretical models in the late 20th century philosophical thought, is today at the core of national and international debate. The lack of attention ...towards care activities has generated a serious crisis that highlights the injustices intrinsic to social production processes and the importance of reproductive work. In this conceptual framework, care becomes a practice, a cultural and ethical value on which it is necessary to set up new policies focused on listening, inclusion, production of public space and of proximity democracies, which in turn generate places of care becoming common goods. In this light, the article describes two practices of care and common good which, although not yet fully developed, have given rise to urban relation, protection and sharing spaces: a collective space, iMorticelli in Salerno, aspiring to become a community landmark through collaborative processes and educational, cultural and research activities; a territorial relation and protection space around genderqueer issues, the LGBTQIA+ Centre in Prato. Keywords: care places; common good; communities; inclusion; caring democracy. Il tema della cura, uno dei piu significativi modelli teorici nel pensiero filosofico del tardo Novecento, e oggi al centro del dibattito nazionale ed internazionale. La mancanza di attenzione verso le attivita di cura ha generato una grave crisi che evidenzia le ingiustizie intrinseche ai processi di produzione sociale e l'importanza dei lavori riproduttivi. In questo quadro concettuale, la cura diviene una pratica, un valore culturale ed etico sulla base del quale e necessario impostare nuove politiche incentrate sull'ascolto, l'inclusione, la generazione di spazio pubblico e di democrazie di prossimita, a loro volta generatrici di luoghi di cura che diventano beni comuni. In tale prospettiva, il contributo descrive due pratiche di cura e bene comune che, sebbene ancora non pienamente sviluppate, hanno dato luogo a spazi urbani di relazione, presidio e condivisione: uno spazio collettivo, iMorticelli a Salerno, che ambisce ad essere un punto di riferimento per la comunita attraverso processi collaborativi e attivita didattiche, culturali e di ricerca; uno spazio di relazione e presidio sul territorio circa i temi del genderqueer, il Centro LGBTQIA+ a Prato. Parole-chiave: luoghi della cura; bene comune; comunita; inclusione; democrazia della cura.
This book analyzes the relationship between religion, secularism, and liberal democracy—historically, theoretically, and in the context of the contemporary Muslim world. The central issue is: liberal ...democracy requires a form of secularism, yet simultaneously the main cultural and intellectual resources that Muslim democrats can draw upon are religious. A paradox, therefore, confronts the democratic theorist. Challenging the popular belief that religious politics and democratic development are structurally incompatible, three arguments are advanced: In societies where religion is a key marker of identity, the road to liberal democracy must traverse the gates of religious politics. The primary theoretical implication that emerges from this claim is that the process of democratization cannot be de-linked from debates about the normative role of religion in government. While liberal democracy requires secularism, religious traditions are not born with an inherent secular conception of politics. These ideas must be socially constructed. In the context of an emerging democracy, how secularism becomes indigenized as political value is topic that this work explores. An intimate relationship exists between religious reformation and political development. While the first often precedes the second, the processes are interlinked. Democratization does not require a privatization of religion but it does require a reinterpretation of religious ideas that are conducive to liberal democracy. By engaging in this reinterpretation, religious groups can play an important role in the development and consolidation of democracy. Overall, this book argues for a rethinking of democratic theory so that it incorporates the variable of religion in the development and social construction of liberal democracy.
