U prvom, nacelnom delu, autor polazi od toga da jedna mala zemlja, kao sto je nasa, ne moze realisticki ocekivati jednakost, pa cak ni punu ravnopravnost u odnosima sa SAD kao planetarno dominantnom silom. Zato se, prema njemu prema SAD moramo odnositi pragmaticno. To za njega ne znaci da nema nikakvih sansi da sa uspehom otvoreno i odlucno postavimo pitanje i nasih nacionalno-drzavnih interesa i prava kad nastojimo da ih sto vise uskladimo sa interesima i pravima te najmerodavnije i najsilodavnije (...) zemlje. Ekstremni pragmaticari kod nas potcenjuju opasnost principijelisticke reakcije dobrog dela naroda ako snishodljivo preteruju sa popustanjem i prilagodjavanjem. Za nas je najrelevantniji slucaj i najbolji primer za ugled Grcka. U nasim odnosima sa SAD, prema autoru, cesto dolazi do nesporazuma izmedju ostalog i zbog sustinskih razlika u shvatanjima nacije i religije kao i njihovog odnosa sa drzavom. Tim razlikama i nesporazumima posvecena su dva preostala dela ovog teksta. (shrink)

How do we deal with difference personally, interpersonally, nationally? Can we weave a cohesive social fabric in a religiously plural society without suppressing differences? This collection of significant essays suggests that to truly honour differences in matters of faith and religion we must publicly exercise and celebrate them. The secular/sacred, public/private divisions long considered sacred in the West need to be dismantled if Canada (or any nation state) is to develop a genuine mosaic that embraces fundamental differences instead of (...) a melting pot that marginalizes. An ethics of difference starts with a recognition of difference, not as deviance or deficit that threatens but as otherness to connect with, cherish, and celebrate. The book begins with the suggestion that our inability to come to terms with social plurality is not fundamentally the fault of religious differences, and that a public/private split inadequately deals with matters of basic difference. It then explores how encouraging people to live out their respective faiths may open new possibilities for respectful, honourable, and just negotiations of contemporary dilemmas arising out of the multicultural fabric of Canadian life. Towards an Ethics of Community introduces readers to some of the most challenging and divisive dilemmas we face in this increasingly pluralistic, postmodern world — issues such as family and domestic violence, Aboriginal rights, homosexuality and public policy, and female genital mutilation. This is a book truly global in scope and significance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Global Healing and Reconciliation:The Gift and Task of Religion, a Buddhist-Christian PerspectivePeter C. Phan"No peace among nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundation of the religions." Hans Küng's oft-quoted dictum proves even more apposite in the current international situation. Whether or not the September 11, 2001, tragedy and (...) its aftermath can be accounted for in religious terms, there has been a widespread perception that they were part of the conflict between Islam and the West and that this "clash of civilizations" has deep roots in different religious worldviews.Hindsight now shows us that "smart bombs" and armies do not and cannot resolve political problems in Afghanistan and Iraq or spread democracy in the world no matter how one judges the morality of these wars. The question then arises whether there are other ways and means to achieve world peace and reconciliation, to bring about healing among nations, and whether religions can be counted among these. More specifically, if religions can be harnessed to this task, which elements of the "foundation of the religions"—to use Hans Küng's words—need to be investigated in the dialogue among religions in order to bring about reconciliation among religions that in turns leads to reconciliation among nations?This essay explores how Buddhists and Christians can together serve the cause of peace and reconciliation among nations. I will first reflect on the nature, strategies, and spirituality of reconciliation. Next, I consider how the Buddha's and Jesus' teachings on justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation can contribute to global healing. To show the transformative power of these teachings, I conclude with some reflections on how the followers of the Buddha and Jesus can work together for world peace and global healing.Global Healing and Reconciliation: Strategies and SpiritualityAt first sight it seems preposterous and hypocritical to speak of global healing and reconciliation as the gift and task of religion. A brief glance at the history of global [End Page 89] warfare will persuade us of the sad fact that, in the words of Charles Kimball, "more wars have been waged, more people killed, and these days more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history."1 One is reminded of Jesus' injunction that we must first take the log out of our own eyes before attempting to take the speck out of our neighbor's (Matthew 7:5). Yet, religion is arguably the most powerful and effective institutional force for peace and reconciliation. To see how religion can bring this gift of peace to the world and achieve this task of global healing, a brief consideration of the nature and process of reconciliation is helpful.Etymologically, reconciliation means to cause two estranged persons or groups to meet each other again (re-, again + concilium, meeting). By extension, it means to resolve a dispute and to re-establish friendship and harmony, or, at a minimum, peaceful coexistence between opposed individuals or groups.2Reconciliation is both a process and a state of affairs. As process, it sets into motion a complex of agencies and strategies that cannot be used as a universally applicable recipe but requires appropriate tailoring to diverse contexts.3 The process includes certain intermediate stages as conditions of possibility for achieving the desired result. As a personal and sociopolitical state of affairs, reconciliation is an ever-fragile and elusive reality. Ultimately, because of human propensities toward violence and domination, total reconciliation and perfect peace is not achievable by human efforts but is hoped and prayed for as an eschatological gift bestowed by God or as a transcendent blessing beyond this world. This fact does not of course diminish our responsibility to bring about global healing by means of all the resources available, religious and otherwise.What Reconciliation Is NotIn our work for reconciliation it is essential to ascertain what it is not. In a helpful study on reconciliation Catholic theologian Robert Schreiter distinguishes three concepts that are allied to reconciliation but can distort its true sense. The first... (shrink)

Taking issue with those who see recent social transformations as an extension of modernity, the author contends that social theory must confront an epochal change from the modern era to a new era of globality, in which human beings can conceive of forces at work on a global scale, and in which they espouse values that take the globe as their reference point. The book begins by assessing the problems of writing about modernity, showing how narratives of an endlessly (...) self-perpetuating modern age were intrinsic to the "modern project," the attempt by Enlightenment philosophers to transform the everyday world in accord with science and logic under the auspices of the nation-state. Now we are beginning to realize that the nation-state and the modern project cannot renew themselves endlessly through expansion. Instead, the author contends, the age has culminated in its own dissolution, and globality has supplanted modernity as the basis for action and social organization. In theorizing the global age, he considers the worldwide environmental consequences of aggregate human activities, the reconception of human security in the age of nuclear weapons, technological advances in communication systems, the rise of a global economy, and the growing reflexivity of global consciousness, as people and groups begin to refer to the globe as the frame for their beliefs. The book concludes by examining the consequences of the Global Age thesis for politics, identifying a new popular construction of the state that the author terms "performative citizenship." In the modern age, the nation-state was the central power and citizens were beneficiaries of that power, with rights and duties. In the global age, citizens respond to the lack of central power by creating, or performing, the state themselves. The global managerial class uses the skills learned in the bureaucracy of the nation-state to bring pressure on national governments in the interests of global economic, environmental, or human-rights issues. (shrink)

The question of immigration and its corollary community and minority formation has always been analysed in relation to states. However, the increasing importance of solidarity beyond national borders on the grounds of one or several identities – national, religious, ethnic, regional – removes the claim of recognition of a collective identity from a national level to an international level and, in the European Union, to a supranational level. Such an evolution places territory at the core of the analysis of citizenship (...) and nationhood, for communities as well as states. This article will attempt to show that in this new configuration, negotiations between states and immigrants are brought beyond borders in order for states to maintain the ‘power’ of incorporation and citizenship while expanding their influence beyond their territories and to compete with transnational communities in their engagement in the process of globalization. (shrink)

In these early years of the new millennium the world finds itself in a new age of violence and terror. Acts of terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the ongoing post-colonial struggles have created a climate of unprecedented state legitimated and terrorist-based violence, where the emergence of new forms of national insecurity and vulnerability have impacted on every nation and distant corner of the plane. One looks at the world situation and despairs: it is almost impossible to feel safe in (...) the face of such unpredictability. Patriarchy in its various guises, intent on domination and destruction, seems all encompassing and powerful. The questions we ask are enormous: how do we respond and what can we do? Where will genuine moral leadership come from? Where are the signs of hope—true hope—hope born from realism not romanticism? And in particular, as feminists and religionists and theologians, what should our particular contribution be? It is more important than ever to understand hope, and how it generates change. I believe that there are two aspects to global violence that we as feminist religionists and theologians need to tackle in particular. The first is to continue to offer analysis around understanding what hope is, where it derives from, and how it can be transformed into action and motivation. Second, we are experts in two of the principal characteristics of the current global power arrangements—gender and religion—so we have a special responsibility to provide analysis and visionary thinking to our communities. I would like to suggest that the particular contributions that we can make could be firmly placed in the realm of an emerging feminist religious imaginary, because this is the site where our political action and ideas are sustained, nurtured, challenged and where hope is born via imaginative and visionary thinking, where biophillic rationalities and responses are possible. This paper reads global violence and locates hope within a feminist religious imaginary. (shrink)

The question of immigration and its corollary community and minority formation has always been analysed in relation to states. However, the increasing importance of solidarity beyond national borders on the grounds of one or several identities – national, religious, ethnic, regional – removes the claim of recognition of a collective identity from a national level to an international level and, in the European Union, to a supranational level. Such an evolution places territory at the core of the analysis of citizenship (...) and nationhood, for communities as well as states. This article will attempt to show that in this new configuration, negotiations between states and immigrants are brought beyond borders in order for states to maintain the ‘power’ of incorporation and citizenship while expanding their influence beyond their territories and to compete with transnational communities in their engagement in the process of globalization. (shrink)

Brazil has occupied a central role in the access to medicines movement, especially with respect to drugs used to treat those with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Contrary to previous literature centered on the role of the domestic pharmaceutical industry, politicians seeking electoral gains, and civil society activists, I argue that the state, especially the National AIDS Program, led the struggle in contesting a corporate-driven international intellectual property regime. After reviewing the origins of Brazil’s (...) treatment policies and patent reforms, I trace the actions and relationships between the state, civil society, transnational corporations, and local industry in three instances when Brazilian officials used compulsory licenses to reduce the price of medicines. Coalition-building and “naming and shaming” tactics contributed to Brazil’s success, while changing pharmaceutical capabilities limited more aggressive actions. (shrink)

Interrogating the relationship of the sovereign power of the nation state to the scientist's expert knowledge as a legitimating--and sometimes challenging- ...

The neoliberal globalization project of expanding and maintaining capitalism globally requires the shaping of neoliberal nation-states that will entrench its ideology, political structures, and practices. In that sense, the neoliberal nation-state provides an appropriate conceptual site for investigating the local-global nexus in the dynamics of global capitalism. Using the Philippines as an example, this paper investigates the various factors or dimensions in the making of the Philippines as a neoliberal nation-state from the colonial era to the supranational structures (...) that exert external control on the Philippine political economy: the global power of transnational corporations, the IMF, American and Chinese imperialism, including the American military aid that supports militarization and counter-insurgency against movements that challenge the neoliberal agenda of the past and current regimes. In addition, this paper offers implications for policy changes and strategies for global resistance that anti-globalization movements can consider. (shrink)

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_ represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does—or should—religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the (...) concept of "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_, co-edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does, or should, religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the (...) public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)

Many sociologists have drawn attention to the puzzling absence of a detailed discussion of religion in Elias’s investigation of the European civilizing process. Elias did not develop a sociology of religion, but he did not overlook the importance of beliefs in the ‘spirit world’ in the history of human societies. In his writings such convictions were described as fantasy images that could be contrasted with ‘reality-congruent’ knowledge claims. Elias placed fantasy–reality balances, whether religious or secular, at the centre (...) of the analysis of how societies have dealt with collective fears that arise in response to largely uncontrolled conditions. He located religious orientations within a broader framework of analysis regarding fantasy–reality balances in the first human groups and in current state-organized societies. Elias stressed how balances changed in ‘civilized’ societies with the rise of the natural sciences. But his writings emphasized the continuing influence of fantasy images in technologically sophisticated societies, particularly in the context of national and international power struggles. His analysis of how fantasy images acquired considerable influence under conditions of fear is important for studies of social responses to global challenges including climate change. Connections with Weber’s sociology of religion point the way to theoretically informed empirical research on balances between fantasy and reality-congruence in a tumultuous and unpredictable era. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Occupy Religion:Theology of the Multitude and Interreligious DialogueJoerg RiegerOne of the big questions for the present is how to bring the different liberation movements together. The different liberation theologies, as is well known, have addressed various forms of oppression along the lines of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and other factors. What is it that brings us together without erasing our differences? This question has important implications for (...) interreligious dialogue, as we shall see.In our book Occupy Religion Kwok Pui-lan and I use the term “multitude” to reflect on unity and difference.1 This term, made prominent by political scientists and philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,2 has deep roots in our theological traditions. Several decades ago, Korean Minjung theology noted the prominence of the notion of the multitude (this is how the term minjung can be translated into English) in the Bible. In the Gospels, the so-called ochlos (the Greek term for the masses or the common people) does not describe only the ones who are the recipients of Jesus’ transformative ministry; the ochlos also describes the participants in it and the agents of change. In addition, our Latin American colleagues have highlighted the importance of Greek term laos in the biblical traditions, which is also used to designate the common people rather than the elites.There is a distinct difference between the Greek notions of democracy and laocracy or ochlocracy. Democracy describes the rule of the demos, which is constituted by the elite citizens of a city-state. Lower-class citizens, women, and slaves are not part of this rule. Laocracy and ochlocracy, on the other hand, describe the rule of the common people, including the proverbial “least of these” of which Jesus speaks frequently. These common people include all those who have been and are being marginalized on the basis of their gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. In the ministry of Jesus, which is informed by the ministry of Moses, Miriam, Hannah, and the prophets, the common people are organized and become agents. God values their diverse contributions to life. In the world of laocracy and ochlocracy, there are different ways of being productive in the community, and all of them are acknowledged and needed. As Hardt and Negri remind us, the multitude is not the uniform entity of what has often [End Page 167] been called “the people” in various nationalisms or fascisms. Neither is the multitude the undifferentiated mass or the mob.3What brings the various liberation movements together, therefore, is not uniformity or a request to surrender difference. What brings us together is “deep solidarity,” the recognition that we are all in the same boat under the conditions of global capitalism.4 This insight is related to the topic of class, which has consistently been pushed underground in the United States but which has recently reemerged in the context of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The now-familiar notion of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent is a reminder that the majority of people are benefitting less and less from the neoliberal market economy. This includes even members of the middle class, as they have seen their retirement accounts dwindle, their job security take ever-more severe hits, their benefits erode, and their political power fade. Furthermore, the aspects of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity are closely linked to class, as they all increase the disadvantages of people in the neoliberal market economy, thus boosting the reality of deep solidarity. Deep solidarity ties together members of the 99 percent across the lines of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, and it thrives on difference, as they can now work together and make use of their various opportunities and gifts.Deep solidarity differs from conventional ideas of solidarity, which were often based on the idea that those who are privileged place themselves on the side of those without privilege. While it is still possible for members of the 1 percent to place themselves on the side of the 99 percent, the majority of us are now part of the 99 percent, and thus belong to classes that have something to gain from liberation. Class struggle, as... (shrink)

Evil remains a primary source of inquiry in contemporary literature of French expression, even among its most secular writers. In considering French-speaking authors from France, Belgium, the United States, the Maghreb, and Sub-Saharan Africa, this collection delineates a rich international perspective on some of the most disturbing events of our time. Each essay testifies to the urgency expressed in works of fiction to give an account of human catastrophes, from the Shoah and the Rwandan genocide to the terrorist attacks of (...) September 11, and the ongoing oppression of women in Islamic nations. Themes underlying this volume include an investigation into the origins of evil, its representations in writing, and the ethical responsibilities of authors who write on human suffering. Contemporary fiction on evil confronts us with fundamental questions: Can evil be attributed to intentionality, is evil "subconscious," or is it the result of impersonal forces? Which styles of writing are ethically appropriate or effective for depicting evil? Can we speak of a veritable "poetics of evil" shared by contemporary authors? When does a literary text on evil become "evil"? In providing informed and nuanced answers to these important questions, the scholars engage in crucial theories of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and post-modernism, address a number of issues raised by trauma and genocide studies, and draw from critical frameworks in literary theory on testimony, the limits of representing the extreme, and "transgressive" writing. (shrink)

This paper attempts to make sense of religious fundamentalists' distorted assessment of the evidence for evolution through natural selection—evidence the scientific and educational and religious communities at large see as unassailable. It argues that philosophical and logical categories and tools are useful in exploring the ideological fracture within the creationist debate, and it goes on to put some of them to work. I examine the epistemic or doxastic position of the audience-members from as neutral a point of view as possible, (...) in order to better understand both what is being expected, by us, of them as believers and information-processors and their response to this expectation. Since that response illustrates one dimension of the sudden and global resurgence of religion in an age of increasing secularization, a phenomenon which has surprised social scientists, this perennial topic deserves study. (shrink)

Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism portrays the high tide of nineteenth-century imperialism as the defining moment in the establishment of a global discursive hegemony, in which European attitudes and concepts gained a universal validity. The idea of “religion” was central to the civilizing mission of imperialism, and was shaped by the interests of a number of colonial actors in a way that remains visibly relevant today. In East and Southeast Asia, however, many of the concerns that statecraft, law, (...) scholarship, and conversion had for religion transcended the European impact. Both before and after the period of European imperialism, states used religion to engineer social ethics and legitimate rule, scholars elaborated and enforced state theologies, and the missionary faithful voiced the need for and nature of religious conversion. The real impact of this period was to integrate pre-existing concerns into larger discourses, transforming them in the process. The ideals of national citizenship and of legal and scholarly impartiality recast the state and its institutions with a modernist sacrality, which had the effect of banishing the religious from the public space. At the same time, the missionary discourse of transformative conversion located it in the very personal realm of sincerity and belief. The evolution of colonial-era discourses of religion and society in Asia since the departure of European imperial power demonstrates both their lasting power and the degree of agency that remains implicit in the idea of hegemony. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religion, the Globalization of War, and Restorative JusticeNathan TierneyAs the pace of globalization increases, the world's religions find themselves in a perilous dilemma that they have yet to resolve in either practical or conceptual terms. On the one hand, the globalization of markets exerts a powerful pressure toward consumerist and materialist values, which undermine and undercut religious perspectives and sensibilities. On the other hand, the globalization of war (...) heightens the intensity of these religious perspectives and sensibilities, and distorts them in the direction of violence and religious extremism. This dilemma plays itself out in different ways in the developed and developing world, but, as the term "globalization" indicates, it is a problem for all of us. Governments, in developing countries especially, often find themselves forced to choose between one horn of the dilemma or the other, with often disastrous results as they take one or the other side in a "West versus the rest" scenario. In the long run, the only viable solution is one that addresses both horns of the dilemma at the same time, and this is possible only if, in turn, religions themselves become truly global. This will require a large-scale and focused cooperative effort in which the religions of the world actively and jointly engage with both problems, working with governments, NGOs, religious communities, and interfaith groups to harmonize religious life with economics and to promote a culture of peace and justice.Because "globalization" is a familiar term in relation to markets, I'll begin by clarifying what I mean by the globalization of war. There are two main aspects to this phenomenon. First, the term refers to a specific transformation in the nature, purposes, and conditions of warfare brought about by the forces of globalization. By globalization I mean the growing trend of the world's cultural, economic, and political forces to bypass national borders and operate on a world scale. This process creates new possibilities for both integration and conflict. When that conflict passes beyond the possibility of diplomatic negotiation, we have the conditions for globalized war. Globalized war is not necessarily world war. It can be relatively local in its sphere of combat; for example, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was a collective response to a worldwide threat of terrorism. What makes it a globalized war, as distinct from international war, is the global nature of the forces that produced it and [End Page 79] are affected by it. Globalized war in this sense has come only lately onto the scene, but its scale and impact is likely to grow in the coming century.The second aspect of the globalization of war is the tendency of conflict to mutate beyond the interests and concerns of nation-states and be taken up by broader civilizational units, even if they were not originally a response to global pressures. The most likely trajectory for this mutation has been well described by Samuel P. Huntington in his influential article "The Clash of Civilizations" (1993) and his book-length treatment of the same subject (1997). Huntington argues that the fault lines of conflict will not be primarily ideological or economic but cultural, where "cultural" is to be understood at its broadest level—the level of civilizations. He divides the world into seven or eight competing civilizations: Western, Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African. Societies sharing cultural affinities will cooperate with one another, and the attempt by the West to universalize its dominant version of consumer capitalism and liberal democracy will be resisted in an increasingly determined way—eventually to the point of outright war: "the next world war, if there is one, will be a war between civilizations."1In Huntington's analysis, then, the globalization of war refers to a coming clash of civilizations. He believes that religion will play a central role in this clash as the focal point of civilizations: "Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture tradition and, most important, religion."2 While Western civilization has experienced several decades of decline and decay, in both its cultural unity and its sense of identity, other civilizations have grown both in economic terms and... (shrink)

Franklin I. Gamwell, Existence and the good: metaphysical necessity in morals and politics Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9347-4 Authors William L. Power, Department of Religion, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

al-Fārābi was well aware that ecumenism can easily convert to tyranny if a certain city–state attempts to impose its laws outside its territory. State legislation depends on specific cultural and historical factors which deprives it from being universal because culture and history could not unite different nations in an ecumenical state. Legislation has to be built on universal premises, e.g. on philosophy, so as to serve the needs of a global state. Philosophy is the bond which unites humans and (...) communities, while religion and legislation are disruptive factors. Despite the fact that in our days there are different philosophies, philosophy encourages dialogue, not hatred. As a result, al-Fārābi was right when he founded his ecumenical state on philosophy. Consequently, philosophers ought to persuade the citizens through rational arguments, dialectic, symbols and religion so as to accept the existence of an ecumenical state. The goal of this state is the supreme good, understood as the theoretical living. Al-Fārābi’s ecumenism is a means for the perfection of human beings and societies and not simply for the augmentation of wealth, as it is seen today. Al-Fārābi dreams of an anthropocentric ecumenical state. I support that this should be the form of modern ecumenism. While modern scholars have strong objections to the governing of philosophers, we should agree that philosophy is the appropriate universal language. The persistence on power and other divisive factors, such as religion or tradition, is doomed to fail. (shrink)

New biotechnologies have the potential to both dramatically improve human well-being and dramatically widen inequalities in well-being. This paper addresses a question that lies squarely on the fault line of these two claims: When as a matter of justice are societies obligated to include a new biotechnology in a national healthcare system? This question is approached from the standpoint of a twin aim theory of justice, in which social structures, including nation-states, have double-barreled theoretical objectives with regard to human well-being. (...) The first aim is to achieve a sufficient level of well-being in each of six core dimensions. In the special case of healthcare systems, this aim is focally but not exclusively attentive to achieving health sufficiency as one of the core dimensions. The second aim is to combat the emergence and persistence of densely woven patterns of systematic disadvantage that tend to undermine the achievement of a sufficient level of health and the other core elements of well-being of some persons and groups. Judgments about entitlements to health related resources, including new biotechnologies, are made in light of a threshold notion of health sufficiency. What is enough or sufficient health? The answer that is defended here is that sufficient health is enough health for a decent human life, understood as enough health to live a full life course without preventable, significant functional disability or decrement in health, or treatable pain or suffering. When a state must include a new biotechnology in its national healthcare system is also influenced by ancillary concerns about the connection between health and other core dimensions of well-being. What counts as a significant functional impairment or health decrement is thus explicated, in part, in relation to the theory’s sufficiency aim for the other essential dimensions of well-being, and thus for a decent life, overall. Those elements of health that play a critical role in the experience of sufficient reasoning, affiliation, security, respect and self determination are especially important; any loss of health function or capacity that threatens the individual’s prospects for sufficiency in these other dimensions, including the relational egalitiarian concerns they entail, constitutes a significant functional impairment. Within national borders, individuals are thus entitled to those health-related goods and services that are essential for a sufficiency of each of the dimensions of well-being; with regard to self determination and respect, what is sufficient by way of guaranteed access to specific goods and services is going to depend on the implications of such access for where an individual stands in relation to her co-nationals. The content of any entitlement to health-related goods and services is also necessarily dynamic. What can be done for health and the other core dimensions of well-being as a function of technological innovation and diffusion is in constant flux. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this analysis for the conditions under which states are obligated to include access in their healthcare systems to one biotechnology, deep brain stimulation. (shrink)

This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic (...) participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or 'twilight' of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project 'The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance'. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. (shrink)

How can a just peace be built in sites of genocide, massive civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, and poverty? In Strategies of Peace, the first volume in the Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding series, fifteen leading scholars propose an imaginative and provocative approach to peacebuilding. Today the dominant thinking is the "liberal peace," which stresses cease fires, elections, and short run peace operations carried out by international institutions, western states, and local political elites. But the liberal peace is not enough, the authors (...) argue. A just and sustainable peace requires a far more holistic vision that links together activities, actors, and institutions at all levels. By exploring innovative models for building lasting peace-a United Nations counter-terrorism policy that also promotes good governance; coordination of the international prosecution of war criminals with local efforts to settle civil wars; increasing the involvement of religious leaders, who have a unique ability to elicit peace settlements; and many others--the authors advance a bold new vision for peacebuilding. (shrink)

The central argument developed in this essay is that today we are seeing a proliferation of normative orders where once state normativity ruled and the dominant logic was toward producing a unitary normative framing. One synthesizing image we might use to capture these dynamics is that of a movement from centripetal nation-state articulation to a centrifugal multiplication of specialized assemblages. This multiplication in turn can lead to a sort of simplification of normative structures insofar as: these assemblages are partial and (...) often highly specialized formations centered in particular utilities and purposes. The valence of these particular utilities and purposes can range from the search for justice to narrow self-interest . While this is still a minor process in the larger scale of our geopolity, it signals the beginning of a multi-sited, though partial, disruption of its existing formal architecture. This raises questions about the future of crucial frameworks through which modern societies, economies, and polities have operated: the social contract of liberal states, social democracy as we have come to understand it, modern citizenship, and the formal mechanisms that render certain claims legitimate and others illegitimate in liberal democracies. These frameworks have held together complex interdependencies between rights and obligations, power and the law, wealth and poverty, allegiance and exit.Keywords: assemblages; normative; globalization; denationalization; centripetal; centrifugal; utilities; logics; liberal state; claims. (shrink)

Various authors emphasize an important aspect of the secular context of the contemporary world: the transfer of symbolic power from religion to political ideologies. National ideology enjoys a particular place. In the circumstance of cohabitation between religious minorities and the majority within a national state, solutions must be found that ensure the ground for religious pluralism and freedom. The paper in question aims at analyzing the prerequisites that will render possible cohabitation and mutual recognition between the minority groups (...) and the Orthodox majority within the Romanian context. Due to the cultural diversity of Romania, the state has to elaborate multicultural policies in order to ensure opportunities for affirming the plural religious identities that can be found within the national state. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to identify the main factors of the current crisis of the nation-state and to demonstrate how many of the voids left by this crisis are filled by religions. The main characteristic of the nation-state is the principle of sovereignty. The apogee of the nation-state is the political form of industrialization. National identity is possible only when the state proves to its citizens that the fact of being a member of it carries benefits and privileges (...) and will always bring more. Today, the majority of nation-states, in particular the oldest great powers, no longer have this capability. The weakening of the nation-state began at the end of the 19th century. The first wave of globalization multiplied the cases of reciprocal interferences and trespassed on the theoretical impermeability of the sovereign states. The outcome of the First World War, with the creation of the first supranational body, and much more the outcome of the Second World War, were two important steps of this crisis. The birth of the United Nations, and of other supranational bodies, as well as the creation of the first court called to judge an entire political class, were an assault on the principle of sovereignty. The second wave of globalization, characterized by the free circulation of goods, money, people and cultures, did the rest. Moreover, the countries that ‘invented’ the principle of sovereignty are today in relative decline as new powers are emerging. The nation-state is no longer able to keep its promises. The less effective states become at offering their citizens both meaning and social services, the more do religions tend to reoccupy the public stage. The less national and political legitimacy they have, the more powers use the religious tool against one another. (shrink)

In this book Joel Spring explores three major international educational ideologies that are shaping global society: neo-liberal educational ideology, human rights education, and environmentalism. _Neo-liberal ideology_ reflects a rethinking of nationalist forms of education as the nation-state slowly erodes under the power of a growing global civil society. Traditional nationalist education attempts to mold loyal and patriotic citizens who are emotionally attached to symbols of the state, whereas the goal of neo-liberal educational ideology is to change nationalist (...) education to serve the needs of the global economy. These changes are fueling a clash between the ideas of free-market and consumer-based neo-liberals and those of human rights and environmental educators. _Human rights education_ is concerned with creating activist global citizens. It is rooted in the idea that inherent in human rights doctrines is a collective responsibility to ensure the rights of all people. _Environmentalism_ is the most radical of the ideologies because it rejects the industrial and consumerist paradigm that has dominated most economic thought, including capitalism and communism. Spring synthesizes and analyzes the effect of these educational ideologies on shaping the future of the global society. In the concluding section, he compares the effect of these ideologies on global society with the possibility of a world divided between conflicting civilizations. _How Educational Ideologies Are Shaping Global Society: Intergovernmental Organizations, NGOs, and the Decline of the Nation-State_ features: *a critical exploration of the transition of schooling from a function of the nation-state to a globalized economic and political system; *a discussion of the major organizations and trading blocs shaping the future globalization of educational policies; *an analysis of the major competing global ideologies of education--including national and corporate models that emphasize training workers for a competitive global free market; the worldwide network of human rights and peace educators who are teaching a global set of ethics; and the environmental movement's efforts to create a common set of educational standards for sustainable development and sustainable consumption; and *an exploration of the possible future of global educational policy and school organizations. By integrating a wide range of previously scattered information within a bold new framework for understanding educational ideologies and their impact on the global society, Spring raises important questions for researchers, professionals, and students in history and philosophy of education, educational policy, educational studies, comparative education, multicultural education, curriculum studies, critical media studies, global studies, human rights education, and related areas. (shrink)

Global governance has become a topic of interest to many contemporary political theorists. Issues arising from the nature of global markets and multinational corporations can no longer be locally contained. These developments signal the decline of the nation state and therewith the end of the liberal moral and political theory that justified national institutions. The alternative possible orders appear bleak, including anarchy, hegemonic power or the most horrific of all specters, the liberty crushing “world state.” Kant’s cosmopolitan (...) theory of justice can provide a third way between nationalism and its bleak alternatives, providing a measureof global governance upheld by nations without recourse to a world state. My thesis is that a juridical society of states is necessarily founded upon cosmopolitan right having universal jurisdiction and that the implementation of the norms of hospitality underlying cosmopolitan right requires global institutions based upon democratic representation and accountability. (shrink)

For many students of global governance who explore the myriad institutions, rules, norms, and coordinating arrangements that transcend individual states and societies, what really marks the contemporary era is not the absence of such governance but its “astonishing diversity.” In addition to “long-standing universal-membership bodies,” such as the United Nations, writes Stewart Patrick, “there are various regional institutions, multilateral alliances and security groups, standing consultative mechanisms, self-selecting clubs, ad hoc coalitions, issue-specific arrangements, transnational professional networks, technical standard-setting bodies, (...) class='Hi'>global action networks, and more.” The proliferation and diversification of governance mechanisms—yielding a jumble of formal and informal arrangements—has supplanted the simpler image of state representatives gathering at official assemblies. Many scholars believe this pluralism opens important new avenues for tackling a growing array of complex transnational problems, particularly at a time when the responsiveness of traditional multilateral institutions is being called into question. (shrink)

This article mobilises an analytical framework developed by the author in a series of solo and joint publications according to which religion has shifted from a Nation-State to a Global-Market regime, which it applies to the case of Eastern European Orthodox majority countries, including Russia, in modern times. Bringing together a large amount of research in a synthetic objective, it first examines how religion in Eastern Europe was nationalised and statised from the end of the eighteenth to (...) the twentieth century. It looks at the particularities of the communist experience, and shows how it is best understood as a form of radicalisation of National-Statist trends. It then shows how neoliberal reforms have integrated these countries in wider global flows. The remainder of the article looks at different trends from the perspective of marketisation: the coextensive rise of Orthodoxy affiliation and nationalism, the qualitative changes within Orthodoxy, as well as the parallel developments of New Age derived spirituality and Pentecostalism, the two ideal-typical religious forms in the Global-Market regime, and by linking them to specific experiences of globalisation and social determinants. The conclusion argues that the rise of nationalism and authoritarianism as well as the religious trends that are developing today are the consequences of neoliberal reforms, the penetration of consumerism as a dominant ethos, and thus generalised marketisation. (shrink)

Global governance has become a topic of interest to many contemporary political theorists. Issues arising from the nature of global markets and multinational corporations can no longer be locally contained. These developments signal the decline of the nation state and therewith the end of the liberal moral and political theory that justified national institutions. The alternative possible orders appear bleak, including anarchy, hegemonic power or the most horrific of all specters, the liberty crushing “world state.” Kant’s cosmopolitan (...) theory of justice can provide a third way between nationalism and its bleak alternatives, providing a measureof global governance upheld by nations without recourse to a world state. My thesis is that a juridical society of states is necessarily founded upon cosmopolitan right having universal jurisdiction and that the implementation of the norms of hospitality underlying cosmopolitan right requires global institutions based upon democratic representation and accountability. (shrink)

Global governance has become a topic of interest to many contemporary political theorists. Issues arising from the nature of global markets and multinational corporations can no longer be locally contained. These developments signal the decline of the nation state and therewith the end of the liberal moral and political theory that justified national institutions. The alternative possible orders appear bleak, including anarchy, hegemonic power or the most horrific of all specters, the liberty crushing “world state.” Kant’s cosmopolitan (...) theory of justice can provide a third way between nationalism and its bleak alternatives, providing a measureof global governance upheld by nations without recourse to a world state. My thesis is that a juridical society of states is necessarily founded upon cosmopolitan right having universal jurisdiction and that the implementation of the norms of hospitality underlying cosmopolitan right requires global institutions based upon democratic representation and accountability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness, and: Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the ChurchAbbylynn HelgevoldChristianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness Luke Bretherton Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 272 pp. $41.95.Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church William T. Cavanaugh Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011. 206 pp. $18.00.In (...) their recent books, William Cavanaugh and Luke Bretherton explore the nature of a distinctively Christian political presence in a diverse, modern, liberal democratic society and in an increasingly global world. Both Cavanaugh and Bretherton claim that a Christian life is political in ways that many Christians fail to see. They encourage their readers to think differently about what “politics” is by thinking beyond the parameters for political activity set by the dominant voices and practices of the nation-state or the market.In Migrations of the Holy, Cavanaugh pulls together a number of thematically linked essays in an effort to “give Christians and others some critical tools with which to turn the despair of modern politics toward real hope” (6). That hope is to be found in the church’s promotion and creation of complex social spaces “in which alternative economies and authorities flourish” (42). According to Cavanaugh, Christians ought to acknowledge that the modern nation-state is not oriented toward the pursuit of the common good. Instead, it is fueled by a desire to secure greater power and to perpetuate itself. The nation-state thrives by instilling in its citizens a religious kind of devotion to its ideals and to its continued existence. This religious devotion, animated by the state’s distinctive liturgies and methods of indoctrination, is the vehicle through which the state secures the loyalty of its citizens. Under these idolatrous conditions, Christian citizens become willing to justify and endorse the nation-state’s use of extreme violence; tempted to identify the will of God with the will of the nation-state; and stunted in their ability to imagine alternative political possibilities because they have accepted the limits on religiously informed political activity set by the nation-state. In contrast to the state, the church ought to embody and [End Page 215] enact an alternative social space that is characterized by neighborliness and a love of diversity born out of charity, a penitential and humble disposition born out of an awareness of the reality of sin, and a willingness to pass judgment on prevailing political and economic conditions that fail to reflect God’s will for humanity.These essays are thoughtfully developed. Engaging with them leaves one with the sense that a truly Christian political presence will be vigilant in seeking always to identify and expose the libido dominandi at work in the world and in itself and will inspire the formation and development of societies oriented toward the proper love of God. Cavanaugh challenges the idolization of the nation-state and urges his readers to make use of Christian teachings, stories, and practices to help make possible alternative ways of relating to others and working toward the common good.Bretherton shares many of Cavanaugh’s concerns. In Christianity and Contemporary Politics, Bretherton characterizes the contemporary political life of Christians as being heavily influenced by the “dynamics of co-option, competition, and commodification” (2). Rather than take a theoretical approach to challenging these dynamics, as Cavanaugh does, Bretherton adopts a practical approach. He analyzes concrete examples of Christian political activity that offer alternatives to the earlier-mentioned dynamics in an effort to develop a vision of faithful political witness. His analysis is coupled with an interest in identifying the genuine goods that are present in contemporary liberal societies. In contrast to Cavanaugh, who is more inclined to liken the governance of the nation-state to the services provided by a utility company, Bretherton urges his readers to remember that the peace of Babylon, though not the ultimate peace, is a genuine peace, and that their welfare is tied to its welfare (Jeremiah 29:7). Christians are called not only to be critical of the prevailing status quo but also to... (shrink)

Andrew Fiala's Against Religion, Wars, and States: The Case for Enlightenment Atheism, Just War Pacifism, and Liberal-Democratic Anarchism argues that we need to overcome the idea of the nation-state and look toward global justice, that we need to develop a more critical stance toward religion while embracing enlightened humanism and natural science, and that we need to look beyond violent solutions to social problems in order to build world peace.

This comment argues for the importance of global institutions to regulate nuclear power. Nuclear power presents challenges across national borders irrespective of whether plants are maintained safely. There are international agreements in place on the disposal of nuclear waste, an issue of great concern in terms of environmental and health effects for any nuclear power policy. However, there remains a pressing need for an international agreement to ensure the safe maintenance of nuclear facilities. Safe nuclear (...) class='Hi'>power beyond waste disposal should receive more attention. Nuclear power policy is often a matter of pure state interest with national governments alone responsible for regulating the safe maintenance of nuclear facilities. It ought not be left to national governments alone to regulate the safe administration of nuclear power given the many threats to environmental safety and public health. This comment argues that global institutions may best address this problem. The comment concludes with recommendations on how nuclear power policy might be regulated. (shrink)

In Christianity and the Nation-State, Gary Chartier provocatively offers readers unexpected critical distance from some familiar ways of understanding, justifying, and navigating existing political arrangements. People in multiple societies are posing important questions about the authority and functions of the contemporary nation-state and about potential alternatives to this seemingly inescapable institution. Chartier seeks to develop a distinctive theological response to the conditions prompting these questions. Affirming liberalism and cosmopolitanism, he reflects critically on nationalism, localism, religious establishment, and theological accounts of (...) political authority. He highlights links between sin and state power and underscores deficiencies in democratic rhetoric and theory. He rejects the idea of a global government, advocating a nonterritorial alternative he labels 'radical consociationalism. Moreover, he presents concrete suggestions for life under the rule of the state. (shrink)

The outbreak of COVID-19 comes at the time when a shrinking public sector healthcare is an acknowledged fact in post-colonial societies. The policies adopted by the apparatus of most nation states for the past thirty years or more reveal that providing healthcare to all sections of societies is not a priority. The gradual process of economic liberalization has established “market” as the only legitimate mechanism of the distribution of goods/services as per the efficiency principle. The financial markets are globalized in (...) such a manner that nation states are constantly losing their capacity to perform redistributive functions. State withdrawal from the provision of welfare rights is undermining its moral authority to impose any normative imperative to the people who are being left alone at the mercy of market forces. But the spread of COVID-19 on a global scale has provided an opportunity to the nation state. With the help of healthcare systems, the State has reasserted itself as the ultimate archangel to define human beings and their respective status in the newly emerging nomenclature of the public sphere. In this paper, the rejuvenation of the nation state with respect to bio-power will be discussed in the postcolonial context. (shrink)

If there are redistribute obligations based on justice which hold within a state, shouldn't such obligations also hold on a global basis? What is the moral relevance of national boundaries for questions of global justice? Just as race, sex, and religion are no longer thought to affect fundamental claims of human rights or social justice within the liberal state, why should citizenship by any different within the world community? As Charles Beitz has put it, “A consistent egalitarianism (...) must take the world as its subject.”. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to identify the main factors of the current crisis of the nation-state and to demonstrate how many of the voids left by this crisis are filled by religions. The main characteristic of the nation-state is the principle of sovereignty. The apogee of the nation-state is the political form of industrialization. National identity is possible only when the state proves to its citizens that the fact of being a member of it carries benefits and privileges (...) and will always bring more. Today, the majority of nation-states, in particular the oldest great powers, no longer have this capability. The weakening of the nation-state began at the end of the 19th century. The first wave of globalization multiplied the cases of reciprocal interferences and trespassed on the theoretical impermeability of the sovereign states. The outcome of the First World War, with the creation of the first supranational body, and much more the outcome of the Second World War, were two important steps of this crisis. The birth of the United Nations, and of other supranational bodies, as well as the creation of the first court called to judge an entire political class, were an assault on the principle of sovereignty. The second wave of globalization, characterized by the free circulation of goods, money, people and cultures, did the rest. Moreover, the countries that ‘invented’ the principle of sovereignty are today in relative decline as new powers are emerging. The nation-state is no longer able to keep its promises. The less effective states become at offering their citizens both meaning and social services, the more do religions tend to reoccupy the public stage. The less national and political legitimacy they have, the more powers use the religious tool against one another. (shrink)

The article analyzes the interaction of Orthodoxy and the state and its role in asserting national identity in the context ofRomania’s modernization process. I have developed the concept of tendential modernity for studying the distinctive nature of Romanian modernity Modernity in Romania focused primarily on national and geostrategic problems, due to the absence of a state encompassing all Romanians. The Orthodox Church had been recognized as a symbol of national identity, therefore it was included among the basic institutions that would (...) support the national project, in order to serve the new purposes imposed by modernity. In the context of the modernization process undergone by Romanian society, the church is not separated from the state, but becomes a church of the state, a church whose prerogatives are established by the secular power; thus the church is defined as an institution that is embedded in the process of modern change decided by the state. As a matter of fact, modernity itself was ambivalent and ambiguous, which influenced decisively the role of Orthodoxy in the assertion of Romanian identity. (shrink)

Social liberals and liberal nationalists often argue that cosmopolitans neglect the normative importance of state sovereignty and self-determination. This paper counter-argues that, under current global political and socio-economic circumstances, only the establishment of supranational institutions with some (limited, but significant) sovereign powers can allow states to exercise sovereignty, and peoples? self-determination, in a meaningful way. Social liberals have largely neglected this point because they have focused on an unduly narrow, mainly negative, conception of state sovereignty. I contend, instead, that (...) we should more closely consider the positive aspects of sovereignty, understood as the capacity to maintain internal problem-solving capacities and make meaningful discretionary choices on a range of national issues. (shrink)

The authors focus on the European Union both as a regional organization with distinctive norms and practices, and as a grouping of states that reflect specific individual traditions and views. The chapter describes two core paradigms: the national and the post‐national. The national paradigm is recognizably realist and state‐centric in approach. It suggests that the focus of external behaviour should be the promotion of order via traditional power‐political means and for traditional state‐based normative ends. The post‐national paradigm, however, reflects (...) a more cosmopolitan understanding of global society in which Europe's institutional and substantive understanding of justice questions can be reflected in its policies beyond EU borders. These propositions are tested in three issue areas. The authors conclude that while the EU may have the capacity to shape an order/justice agenda beyond its borders, its members have not yet agreed what that agenda should be. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Women on the Global Market: Irigaray and the Democratic StateNicole Fermon (bio)Best known for her subtle interrogation of philosophy and psychoanalysis, Luce Irigaray clearly also conducts a dialogue with the political, proposing that women’s erasure from culture and society invalidates all economies, sexual or political. Because woman has disappeared both figuratively and literally from society [see Sen, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing”], Irigaray conceives the contemporary (...) ethical project as a recall to difference rather than equality, to difference between women and men—that is, sexual difference. She characterizes relations between men and women as market relations in which women are commodities, objects, but never subjects of exchange, objects to men but not to themselves: women do not belong to themselves but exist “to keep relationships among men running smoothly” [TS 192]. Women under these conditions require imaginative ways to reconfigure the self, to subvert the melancholy and regression of masculinist economies and envisage a future in which women would not be ashamed of the feminine, would experience it as a positivity worth emulating.Irigaray contends that after the gains of egalitarian politics are carefully examined, the inclusion of women in the political arena has failed to take into account women’s distinct and different position from men, and from each other, as well as perpetuating the fiction of the “neutral” citizen, the ahistorical individual citizen of the nation-state. It is that fiction Irigaray dispels in her critique of liberal democratic politics and its creation, “citizens who are neuter in regard to familial singularity, its laws, and necessary sexual difference” [SG 112] in order to benefit the State and its laws. The subject is male; the citizen is neuter. Who is the female citizen in contemporary society? What is the ethical elaboration of the contractual relations between women and men, and between sexed individuals and the community? How do women imagine a distinct set of rights and responsibilities based on self-definition and autonomy, given the particular strictures of contemporary politics—that is, the market-driven, antidemocratic nature of the current economic national and global forces? Irigaray suggests that “the return of women to collective work, to public places, to social relations, demands linguistic mutations” and profound transformations, an embodied imagination with force and agency in civil life [TD 65].Irigaray warns that if civil and political participation is construed in overly narrow terms, if focus is on economic or judicial “circuits” alone, we overlook the symbolic organization of power—women risk losing “everything without even being acknowledged” [TD 56]. Instead an interval of recognition can expand the political to include the concerns and activities of real women, lest silence imply consent to sexual neutrality, or more likely, to women’s obliteration under men’s interests and concerns. Women’s insistence on self-definition and wage labor, on love and justly remunerated work, [End Page 120] testifies to the obduracy of women’s difference, one that is not likely to disappear. The patriarchal family is still the legal norm, even when certain exceptions are made, while enduring questions regarding women’s health and children’s physical welfare as priorities beyond market considerations are consigned to legislative obfuscation, still a political afterthought. Instead, in the US the liberal state removes the slender welfare net specific to women and children, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and fails to provide medical coverage to those who are among the most vulnerable of its citizens. Women without access to the legal protection of sex-neutral citizenship, poor working women without language (the money for an effective “mouthpiece” to represent their distress in a court of law), are further disempowered by liberal politics’ insistence on sexual neutrality—that is, on repression or amnesia regarding the lived experiences of women.Sexual difference is key to any project of self-definition by women. Irigaray insists on the sexual nature of this self-definition, not solely for its obvious procreative necessity, but because the natural world is a source of renewal and fecundity which requires attentive interrogation and respect [SG 15]. This rebirth seems alien to the structure of male politics, which instead seem to provoke disasters (Bhopal, Chernobyl, or the current runaway... (shrink)

The increasing research on international organisations' education policy lacks analyses of the relation between international organisations and nation states. This paper aims to analyse the power of nation states in international education policy. Focusing on the new degree system in higher education in Europe, partly from Foucault's governmentality perspective, the paper suggests that nation states retain power while operating in international settings. The study's conclusions argue that the nation states' power might be a chance for further participation (...) of affected people. (shrink)

In this article I want to consider whether the authority of the United States to enter into treaties in a global environment is limited by constitutional constraints. The issue arises because a reasonable interpretation of the language of Article VI would place the treaty power on the same status-footing as the Constitution of the United States. But if that is the case, then presumably a treaty might be designed that could delegate constitutional powers to bodies like the United (...) Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”), the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization (“WTO”), or other international organizations. Or, a treaty might be designed to reserve particular constitutional rights – like the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury in criminal cases – from operating within certain contexts as might concern areas over which the United States exercises territorial jurisdiction, for example, Guam, Puerto Rico, and in other contexts where only international agreements apply. (shrink)

Sarat and Scheingold's book, Cause Lawyering, the first volume of its kind, coined the term for law as practiced by the politically motivated and those devoted to moral activism. The new collection examines cause lawyering in the global context, exploring the ways in which it is influencing and being influenced by the disaggregation of state power associated with democratization, and how democratization empowers lawyers who want to effect change. New configurations of state power create opportunities for altering (...) the political and social status quo. Cause lawyers are developing transnational networks to exploit these global opportunities, and to help strengthen international norms on issues such as human rights. The fifteen essays will focus on different national settings including South Africa, Israel, the U.K. and Latin America. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 133-134 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660-1990 Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660-1990. By Charles B.Jones. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. 233 pp. Charles Jones spent over three years living in Taiwan pursuing the research for this book and for journal articles about religion on the island. He is currently on (...) the faculty of the Department of Religion at the Catholic University of America. Jones primarily focuses on the history of Chinese Buddhism as an organized religion in Taiwan from the mid-1600s to the late 1980s. This is a much needed study as most literature on Chinese Buddhism is based on Mainland Chinese Buddhism. Only in the last decade has there been a shift to focus on Taiwan Buddhism as a separate entity rather than seeing it only as an extension of Mainland Chinese Buddhism.The book is nicely organized into three major historical eras. Part 1 is titled "The Ming and Qing Dynasty (1660-1895)." This section, only one chapter, mainly focuses on the arrival and early development of Buddhism in Taiwan. Part 2 is titled "The Japanese Colonial Period (1895-1945)." This section, two chapters, of course focuses on the advent of Japanese Buddhism on the island along with its impact on Taiwan's Buddhism. Part 3 is titled "From Retrocession to the Modern Period (1945-1990)." This is the largest section of the book, with four chapters. I found this section to be more detailed and interesting than the previous two sections. I will spend the remainder of this book review commenting on this last section.In part 3 of his book, Jones begins with a chapter on the retrocession (the period at the end of World War II when Japan was forced out of Taiwan) and the arrival of the Mainland Buddhist monks to Taiwan. This chapter shows the emergence of an organized Buddhism that started to develop under the oversight of the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), which had begun previous to World War II in Mainland China but relocated to Taiwan with the national government in 1949. Also of interest in this chapter is the discussion of the power struggles within Buddhism between a traditionalist faction led byYuanying, and a reformist faction led by Taixu. In the end, the struggle was resolved in favor of the traditionalists; this has led to Taiwan Buddhism tending to incline toward conservatism.Chapter five focuses entirely on the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC). It is neatly organized into two major sections, "The early period, 1949-1960," and "The middle period, 1960-1986." In the early period section, Jones does a good job explaining the BAROC's organization, mission, and activities. Included as well is a small but fascinating discussion on "The vitality of the nun's order after 1952," in which Jones tries to answer the question of why nuns have increasingly come to predominate numerically over monks, a situation that exists only in Taiwan and Hong Kong.The second half of the chapter, "The middle period, 1960-1986," focuses on the leadership of the BAROC under Baisheng. From 1960, when Baisheng became president of BAROC, until his death in 1986, Baisheng remained a controlling presence in BAROC affairs, despite the fact that he did not hold the presidency continuously [End Page 133] during this period. Also in this section, Jones highlights the internationalism ofTaiwan Buddhism under the leadership of Baisheng, which was seen in the ordinations of foreign monks and in the involvement of BAROC in international Buddhism organizations. This chapter also covers the continual struggle to regain possession of Japanese-era temples.Chapter five ends with a section called "Criticisms of the BAROC." The largest criticism leveled against the BAROC was that it failed to become the unifying force for Taiwan Buddhism that it might have been, a problem related to its elitist attitude at the national level, where only a very small closed group of people had the actual decision... (shrink)

This article examines the issue of illicit drug control across three broad levels of analysis. On one level, it examines the nature of the response to a ‘global phenomenon’ and its impact on national sovereignty. On a second level, it considers emergent state forms and practices and their relationship to global changes; and, thirdly, it grounds the analysis temporally and empirically in the contemporary European Union. The complex, evolving and essentially fragmented character of state power is placed (...) in the context of the classic state functions of authority and control. This is set against the growing transnational role of expert knowledge in policy‐making, and concludes with an assessment of the political implications that can be drawn from analysis of this complex set of factors. (shrink)

The paper analyses the philosophical aspects of the 'religion - national mythology' synthesis. The main directions of the study are as follows: 1. Both on the individual and social plan, the orientation of the transcending universalizing power of religion could vary depending on the macro-social movements a community /or an individual/ is involved in. For the individual as for the community, religion could be a cultural position transcending ego and ethno-centrism, mono-cultural tendencies; in situations of internal (...) differentiation and disintegration of these entities, the universalizing binding role of religion is partialized and determined by various social groups, who are often in opposition to each other due to their economic political, ethnic, psychological features; 2. This process is usually related to the invalidation of universally uniting religious-moral bonds and values and intensification of differences: power, property, doctrinal differences to a shift of the weight center from internal spiritual movements /particularly typical of mysticism, asceticism, priesthood/ on to practical social action - reformist heresies, the various practical theologies of revolution, liberation, the religious-motivated wars; 3. When reduced to an ethnic, political, or state emblem, religious affiliation to Judaism, Islam Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism has become and still remain a tool for the sacralization of military and political conflicts. In religion-motivated conflict situations, opposing parties de-sacralize their Sacred Books as their acts contradict the books' moral content; 4. The power of historical mythologies is in reverse proportion to the capacity of a nation to periodically renew its social life world - its psychological attitudes labour relations, political stereotypes; 5. In this type of situation religion is usually reduced to 'belonging', as G. Davie put it, at the expense of 'believing' and a corresponding moral behavior. The religious universe becomes thus subordinated to partial group values, instead of standing above them. Ovaj tekst analizira filozofske aspekte sinteze 'religija - nacionalna ideologija'. Sledeci su glavni pravci studije: 1. I na individualnom i na drustvenom planu, usmerenje na transcendiranju, univerzalizaciji moci religije moze varirati u zavisnosti od makrosocijalnih kretanja zajednice koji je u njih ukljucen. Kako za pojedinca tako i za zajednicu, religija bi mogla biti kulturno stanoviste koje transcendira egocentrizam i etnocentrizam, kao i monokulturna kretanja; u situacijama unutrasnjih raslojavanja i dezintegracije tih entiteta, univerzalizujuca uloga religije je parcijalizovana i odredjena od razlicitih drustvenih grupa koje cesto stoje nasuprot jedna drugoj zbog njihovih politickih, ekonomskih etnickih i psiholoskih osobina. 2. Taj je proces obicno povezan s obezvredjivanjem univerzalno ujedinjujucih religijsko-moralnih vrednosti i intenziviranjem razlika: moc, svojina, doktrinalne razlike; 3. Kada su svedeni na etnicke, politicke ili drzavne simbole, religiozna pripadnost judaizmu, islamu, pravoslavlju, katolicanstvu, protestantizmu postaje i ostaje sredstvo za sakralizaciju vojnih i politickih sukoba. U situacijama sukoba koji religijski motivisani, protivnicke strane desakralizuju svete knjige druge strane kako njihova dela protivrece moralnom sadrzaju tih knjiga. 4. Moc istorijskih mitologija je u obrnutoj srazmeri sa sposobnoscu nacije da periodicno obnovi svoj drustveni svet zivota - svoja psiholoska drzanja, radne odnose, politicke stereotipe. 5. U situaciji tog tipa religija je obicno svedena na 'pripadnistvo', kako na to ukazuje G. Dejvi naustrb 'verovanja' i odgovarajuceg moralnog ponasanja. (shrink)