One of the most interesting phenomena of our religious-political life is the considerable difference in attitude toward religion between the popular masses and the political elite. In our survey of public opinion, the respondents had to express their attitude to two alternative statements: "There are national, traditional religions in our country. They should have more rights than representatives of religions that are new to our country "; and "All religions should have absolutely equal rights." Only 9 percent (...) agreed with the first statement, while the vast majority agreed with the second. Even among the Orthodox, adherents of the Moscow patriarchy, only 13 percent were supporters of special patronage by the state for the traditional religions, while those who advocated an equality of religion made up 69 percent. Thus, the idea of a state church is alien to the contemporary popular consciousness. The evolution of mass consciousness is toward an even greater amorphousness and indefiniteness with regard to religion and further away from the idea of a national, state church. The data confirming this have already been presented. Let me just recall that the percentage of persons who approved of the church's participation in political life decreased from 74 percent to 48 percent from 1990 to 1991. (shrink)

Loss of the green belts in the cities as an antecedent outcome of haphazard and irregular urbanization as one of the principle factors has a negative bearing on the socio ecological services that nature entails. Our paper represents the conditions under which the contemporary statist conservationist efforts to preserve the urban protected areas in India induces a marginal existence and livelihood vulnerability upon the survival of the population residing within these PAs. A recent survey to Sanjay Gandhi National Park (...) in Mumbai reflects the ways in which a politics of conservation operates not only in the rural regions but also in cities, in highly inequitable and fabricated ways. This has consequently affected the impoverished, disempowered and impecunious inhabitants who comprise a considerable segment of population in cosmopolitan Mumbai, residing within the PAs. The present article assesses the ways in which in metropolises, PAs by definition determine jurisdictions and exercise rights to exclude the social groups who are marginal and less powerful. This is to preserve a pristine people free aesthetic environment in cities, for which there is an increasing demand from the local elite. The results of the study indicate the socio ecological aspects of the conservation politics in the city of Mumbai. The emergent consequences are in terms of the questions of universal rights to the PAs or reflecting an elitist provision of environmental integrity to the privileged visitors in the city. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, written in reaction to those who argued that the African National Congress (ANC) had no alternative but to implement neoliberal economic policies in the context of the 'Washington Consensus', I discussed the strategic choices and ideological pitfalls of the 'political class' who took over state power in South Africa after the end of apartheid and implemented its own homegrown structural adjustment programme (Gibson 2001). Much of this transition has been scripted by political science (...) 'transition literature' and much of it is proactive, mapping out what should be done to establish a 'pacted', 'elite' democracy overseeing neoliberal economic policies (O'Donnell, Schmitter & Whitehead 1986). From another vantage point, I argued that Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is perhaps one of the most perceptive critiques of the transition literature available. This article continues the discussion. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, written in reaction to those who argued that the African National Congress had no alternative but to implement neoliberal economic policies in the context of the 'Washington Consensus', I discussed the strategic choices and ideological pitfalls of the 'political class' who took over state power in South Africa after the end of apartheid and implemented its own homegrown structural adjustment programme. Much of this transition has been scripted by political science 'transition literature' and (...) much of it is proactive, mapping out what should be done to establish a 'pacted', 'elite' democracy overseeing neoliberal economic policies. From another vantage point, I argued that Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is perhaps one of the most perceptive critiques of the transition literature available. This article continues the discussion. (shrink)

This article presents a longitudinal study during the Italian ‘short twentieth century’. Our focus is on the behaviour of the political field, the recruitment process of the ministerial elite and its impact on the stability of the political system. The main aim of the paper is to build a descriptive and explanatory model that sheds light on the fragility of the PS in Italy. There are two main findings: PF is formed through waves of new forces characterised by (...) impermeable bonds. The instability of the PS is largely due to a lack of inclusiveness in the PF. The National Solidarity governments showed that an inclusive PF which gathers loyal and disloyal forces even at a critical juncture phase is able to counterbalance the exogenous challenge. (shrink)

Urban elites and their relative income levels are windows on the emerging socioeconomic order in China. We add to the research literature a new view that economic sectors are the institutional contexts in which different elites seek their material gains. Conducting a trend analysis with 1988 and 1995 national surveys of urban China, we found that political, administrative, and managerial elites maintained consistently higher levels of income relative to professional elites, but this applied mainly (...) to a monopoly sector of industries that were restricted to state operation. Managers in the open industry sector that allowed for free entry and exile experienced income declines relative to professionals within the sector, even though the former had moderately higher income levels than the latter in 1988 and 1995. All elite groups in the monopoly sector retained higher incomes than their counterparts in the open sector in 1995, but not necessarily in 1988. (shrink)

In his landmark monograph, "The Politics of Jesus", John Howard Yoder challenged mainstream Christian social ethics by arguing that the New Testament account of Jesus's founding of a messianic community entails a normative politics, not only for early Christianity but for the contemporary church. This challenge is further elaborated in several important posthumous publications, especially "Preface to Theology", in which Yoder examines the development of early Christology with attention to its political and ethical implications, and "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited", (...) Yoder's proposal for a renewed Jewish-Christian dialogue around the moral meaning of messianism. This article interprets these writings with reference to a range of critical scholarship on and about Yoder, Yoder and Augustine, and Jewish and Christian messianism, paying particular attention to questions of political ethics. (shrink)

In this article we examine elite formation in relation to money power within the city of London. Our primary aim is to consider the impact of the massive concentration of such power upon the city’s political life, municipal and shared resources and social equity. We argue that objectives of city success have come to be identified and aligned with the presence of wealth elites while wider goals, of access to essential resources for citizens, have withered. A diverse (...) class='Hi'>national and global wealth-elite is drawn to a city with an almost unique cultural infrastructure, fiscal regime and ushering butler class of politicians. We consider how London is being made for money and the monied – in physical, political and cultural terms. We conclude that the conceptualization of elites as wealth and social power formations operating within urban spatial arenas is important for capturing the nature of new social divisions and changes. (shrink)

The study explains the perception of the nation in the political thinking of Svetozár Hurban Vajanský, which is founded on primordialist starting points and has a holistic character. In this context, the relationship between the nationally conscious elite and the people is analysed in more detail. The ambivalence of Vajanský’s political thinking is evident in the fact that, in many ways, he formally promotes Ľudovít Štúr’s original idea of unity, but, within Slovak political discourse, he promotes the (...) idea of programme uniformity. Subsequently, this becomes a source of cultural and political isolationism. This fact is complemented in parallel by reflecting the primary acculturation importance of the national elite in developing the national consciousness of the population. Vajanský also incorporated the idea of Slavic mutuality into the national emancipation concept of developing Slovak national identity. Its content is in line with Štúr’s ethnic romanticism. The historicist concept of the development of Slavs under Russian protection also appears in his thinking. Vajanský’s Russophilism was, thus, loosely tied to the ideas of Russian Slavophiles and the idealising perspective of the Slavs’ civilisational mission, who were to form a new, more spiritual and culturally advanced, civilisation circle compared with the morally declining nations of the West. (shrink)

The existing scholarship has developed six main explanations to account for the success of the Chinese Revolution, which has been anomalous for major paradigms derived from cross-national comparisons. Methodologically, we use a social geographical approach to test these existing explanations systematically by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset of Communist growth in 93 counties in the three most contested provinces during its most pivotal period of ascendence. Theoretically, we advance and test an alternative perspective, based on the groundwork of (...) Tocqueville and Fei Xiaotong, that integrates the state-centric theory, elite theory, and cultural analysis. Our perspective emphasizes the interplay between state centralization and local elite structure, which leads to intensified state extraction and local elite fracturing, thus creating favorable conditions for revolution. The quantitative analysis strongly supports the importance of the Japanese invasion but provides limited support for many other conventional explanations. The analysis largely confirms the Tocqueville-Fei perspective on state centralization, elite fracturing, cultural change, and revolution. The findings are buttressed by a detailed case study of Lianshui County. The study unveils a common structural challenge that a modernizing state faces in an agrarian status society, to recreate its political legitimacy while disrupting local elite structure. It also sheds historical light on the evolution of state-society relationship through the Chinese Revolution. (shrink)

Fugitive Politics explores the intersection between politics and ecology, between the requirements for radical change and the unprecedented challenges posed by the global crisis, a dialectic has rarely been addressed in academia. Across eight chapters, Carl Boggs explores how systemic change may be achieved within the current system, while detailing attempts at achieving change within nation states. Boggs states that any notion of revolution seems fanciful in the current climate, contending that controlling elites have concentrated their hold on corporate (...) power along three self-serving fronts: technology (Big Tech) and the surveillance order, militarism and the warfare state, intensification of globalized power. Combined with this Boggs cites the fundamental absence of revolutionary counter-forces, arguing that after decades of subservice relevant, allied to the rise of identity politics and social movements, the Marxist theoretical legacy is now exhausted, and will not provide an exit from the crisis. Boggs concludes that the only possibility for fundamental change will come from an open style of politics, in the Jacobin tradition, operating within the overall structures of the current democratic state. Written for both an academic and general readership, in the US and beyond, Fugitive Politics will be of vital importance to those studying political theory, political philosophy, political history, Marxism and Marxist theory, authoritarian politics, ecology, environmental politics, and climate politics. (shrink)

Flesh of My Flesh is a collection of articles by today's most respected scientists, philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, and law professors about whether we should allow human cloning. It includes historical pieces to provide background for the current debate. Religious, philosophical, and legal points of view are all represented.

In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of “Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)”—estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50 % of the country’s arable land—has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to a rapid increase of rural landlessness. By contrast, less than 7,000 ha of land have been allotted to land-poor and landless farmers under the pilot project (...) for “Social Land Concessions (SLCs)” supported by various donor agencies. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in two research sites in Kratie Province, this article sheds light on the mechanisms and discourses surrounding the allocation of ELCs and SLCs. Our findings suggest that large-scale and non-transparent land leases in the form of ELCs are discursively justified as land policy measures supporting national development, creating employment opportunities in rural areas, and restoring “degraded” and “non-use” land, while SLCs are presented by the government and its international donors as a complementary policy to reduce landlessness, alleviate rural poverty, and ensure a more equitable land distribution. We argue that the SLC pilot project is a deliberate strategy deployed by the Cambodian ruling elite to instrumentalize international aid agencies in formalizing displacement and distributional injustices, in smoothing the adverse social impacts of their very own land policies and in minimizing resistance by dispossessed rural people. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reconsider the traditional evaluation of S. H. Vajanský, which underlines mainly the anti-progressive, conservative and anti-realistic features of his later writings. The examination of his earlier articles in Narodné noviny up to 1883 shows, however, his critical openness to the contributions of constitutionalism. His primordialistic standpoint is enriched by the ideas emphasizing the importance of the education of wider public as well as the necessity of polemics in creating Slovak national awareness. Young (...) Vajanský did not dismiss the incentives of liberalism or constitutionalism. He rather criticized their formalism. He acknowledged their key contribution in expanding the ideas of the freedom of press and speech, which should have served the political elites in their creating the national identity. (shrink)

This article explores the interplay between the globalization process and the nation/nation-state by examining the case of contemporary Taiwan. Globalization is analyzed along four dimensions: flows of people, flows of culture, economic globalization and international/transnational institutions. Along each dimension, it is found that globalization has had a profound impact upon how cultural and political elites imagine their nation, leading to rising aspirations for nationhood and nation-stateness. Meanwhile, nation-building efforts have deepened Taiwan's embeddedness in globalization, where globalization itself is (...) being employed, both by the state and non-state elites, as a strategy to construct the nation. Three implications suggest that the relationship between `the global' and `the national' be reconceptualized. First, nations and nationalism can be better comprehended against a global/international backdrop, as national identity to a large extent depends upon the imagined or real approval of other nations. Second, there emerges a new strategic alliance between the global and the national, in the sense that globalization gives new ground upon which the nation can be formulated. And finally, by reinforcing certain institutional prerogatives of nations and nation-states, globalization may also lead to an increased desire for nationhood and nation-stateness in cases where the latter two have not been fully realized. (shrink)

The sources of religious tolerance but also of religious nationalism in post-soviet Russia can be found basically in the group identification of nationality and religion. In crisis situations, the historical religion of the Russian society - Orthodoxy - becomes the criterion for identifying the national identity. However, despite the fact that the majority of Russians in our times consider themselves Orthodox, many of them are not believers. The observable effect of the “external belief” results in the fact that the (...) religion tends to become a matter of personal choice and an individual value. It assumes a nationalistic function and to become an ideology. As a result, the political elite considers religion as a means of achieving different non- religious purposes. The Russian Orthodox Church, the official church, is compelled to take this fact into consider- ation and even support it. This is why religious intolerance and religious nationalism in modern Russia are often directed towards religion. (shrink)

The book begins with an overview of globalization, showing how wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a transnational elite while ever increasing numbers of people are being marginalised. Institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund are intent upon exercising a new hegemony over individuals as the role of the traditional nation state is transformed. At the centre of this power shift is a group of high-tech robber barons who dominate the Information Age (...) and exploit the technologies of globalization for their own narrow interests. The second part of the book explores the rise of the new grass roots oppositional movements around the world. Manifest in such diverse struggles as the uprising of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the battle of Seattle against the World Trade Organisation, this new postmodern politics is "de-centred" and has little interest in the old ideologies that dominated much of the twentieth century. The final section of the book contextualizes postmodern politics by drawing on contemporary examples. The authors discuss the demise of socialist and proto-socialist experiments in Chile, Grenada, Nicaragua and Cuba and the emergence of postmodern movements in Latin America. The final two chapters take a specific look at the Zapatista movement and its significance for revolutionary struggles around the world. (shrink)

This article aims to analyse the cultural background of the political elites involved nowadays in the democratization’s process in North Africa. It argues that this process cannot succeed unless a...

Empires and nation-states are generally opposed to each other, as contrasting and antithetical forms. Nationalism is widely held to have been the solvent that dissolved the historic European empires. This paper argues that there are in fact, in practice at least, significant similarities between nation-states and empires. Many nation-states are in effect empires in miniature. Similarly, many empires can be seen as nation-states “writ large.” Moreover, empires were not, as is usually held, superseded by nation-states but continued alongside them. Empires (...) and nation-states may in fact best be thought of as alternative political projects, both of which are available for elites to pursue depending on the circumstances of the moment. Ultimately empires and nation-states do point in different directions, but it is not clear that the future is a future of nation-states. Empires, as large-scale and long-lasting multiethnic and “multicultural” experiments, may have much to teach us in the current historical phase of globalization and increasingly heterogeneous societies. (shrink)

Politics in Golden Age Denmark was largely an affair of liberal and conservative elites wrestling with the emergent phenomena of the “common man.” Denmark's bloodless revolution of 1848 led to a nationalist civil war and to the creation of a People's Church. The heightened fervor surrounding questions of nation and church forms the context within which Kierkegaard wrote. In particular, Kierkegaard set himself against Grundtvig and Martensen. These churchmen were public figures with a political voice. Kierkegaard's arguments against (...) these and other influential “world historians” reveal how his political imagination is worked out in the related areas of history, the moment, identity, and the common man. Crucial planks in the Kierkegaardian platform such as living in the present, the subjective critique of systematizing objectivity, and the single individual against the crowd, all had—and were seen to have—political implications for the common man in Denmark's Golden Age. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The article is dedicated to the research of Lesia Ukrainka’s correspondence, journalistic and literary-critical articles concerning the problem of national identity as a factor in overcoming the "Russian Ukrainians" dichotomy. Achieving this purpose involves solving the following tasks: 1) to reveal the poetess’s views on the essence and social manifestations of worldview fluctuations in the life activities of the Ukrainian elite at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries; 2) outline her strategy for overcoming cultural "inter-words" in (...) the individual and society. _Theoretical basis._ The author applies the existential discourse of Foreignness by G. Marcel, criticism of Christianity by F. Nietzche, the theory of the nation by F. Meineke, typology of patriotism by A. Valitsky, the phenomenology of the relationship between the Self and the Other by J. Kristeva, the typology of the Stranger by B. Waldenfels, the ideas of D. Dontsov, O. Zabuzhko, S. Varetska, S. Matsenka, D. Melnyk, Y. Tarasiuk. _Originality._ The author proves that Lesia Ukrainka is one of the first among Ukrainian thinkers who critically considers the issue of dichotomy in the worldview and life world of "Russian Ukrainians" of the early twentieth century – One’s own and Others’, stopping in the uncertainty of one’s belonging to Russian or Ukrainian culture, rejection of national self-identification. _Conclusions._ The ways to overcome this dichotomy, alienation from the values of Ukrainian culture, betrayal, and collaborationism, Lesia Ukrainka sees, firstly, awareness of the cultural difference of Ukrainians, that is, the spiritual and psychological incompatibility of the Ukrainian national identity with the Russian one. Secondly, the need for an effective volitional separation from others and the political struggle for unification into the Ukrainian nation as a social and culturally self-sufficient collective self, worthy of a free dignified existence and recognition by other nations of the world. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest that there is a need to examine what is meant by “context” in Social Psychology and present an example of how to place identity in its social and institutional context. Taking the case of British naturalisation, the process whereby migrants become citizens, we show that the identity of naturalised citizens is defined by common-sense ideas about Britishness and by immigration policies. An analysis of policy documents on “earned citizenship” and interviews with naturalised citizens shows that (...) the distinction between “elite” and “non-elite” migrants is evident in both the “reified” sphere of policy and the “common sense” sphere of everyday identity construction. While social representations embedded in lay experience construct ethno-cultural similarity and difference, immigration policies engage in an institutionalised positioning process by determining migrants' rights of mobility. These spheres of knowledge and practice are not disconnected as these two levels of “managing otherness” overlap—it is the poorer, less skilled migrants, originating outside the West who epitomise difference (within a consensual sphere) and have less freedom of mobility (within a reified sphere). We show that the context of identity should be understood as simultaneously psychological and political. (shrink)

The Slovak political thought of the 19th century mingles with the nation-building efforts. According to the author the nationalists were one of the intellectual elites of Central Europe, which based their nation-building on ethnic ideology. This ideology embodied various elements, such as passive historicism, "prilepenectvo" and the will to become a historical subject. They made use of a non-political concept of nation as a language an cultural community, which gradually became politicized. The ultimate objective was the institutionalization (...) of the nation, defined originally non-politically. According to the author there are two ways of achieving this objective, conceived of as ideal types: the type A implies the institutionalization from above, based on an intervention of a power instance ; the type B implies the institutionalization resulting from gradual growth of national capacities in the political frame of Hungary of that time. These types correspond to different views of what is political activity. Nevertheless, the Slovak political thought of the 19th century did not go beyond the level of experimentation. (shrink)

Sobre la base de la teoría de “los mejores” de J. Ortega y Gasset el autor trató de investigar el papel de los estratos superiores de la sociedad, de la élite nacional en la modernización del régimen político en los principios de la democracia y la poliarquía. Fue revelado el papel en los procesos del gobierno y la administración del poder político y ejecutivo del aparato estatal, que consiste en los funcionarios públicos, profesional y moralmente preparados y capaces asegurar el (...) funcionamiento sostenible y soberano de las instituciones del Estado. En Rusia en el inicio del 2012 se comenzón las actividades socio-políticas llamadas en la ciencia política como la tecnología “de nacionalizaciόn” de las élites. Se produce una armonización de los intereses de los grupos políticos y empresariales de alto nivel social con los intereses del Estado y la sociedad civil. Fue realizado el análisis comparativo del impacto de las élites políticas de España y Rusia sobre la estabilidad política para garantizar el desarrollo socio-económico soberano de sus países. En la soberanía del Estado se refleja la plenitud de la autoridad governamental de los grupos sociales más altos, la élite nacional. Por separado se destacó la función de la élite político-militar como un aparato coercitivo legítimo, que asegura el bienestar del Estado democrático. Los modelos actuales de los regímenes políticos democráticos – no es una meta, sino un instrumento para lograr el bienestar del Estado y nación. Los acontecimientos en Rusia contemporánea comproban la actualidad científica de las obras del gran pensador J.Ortega y Gasset. (shrink)

In the middle of the 19th century the nation building elites using Slovak language have undergone an important political differentiation. One part of previously united emancipatory movment, which has arisen mainly under the influence of Hegel’s philosophy of history and its Štúrian interpretation, formed into a new political-philosophical alternative. Its program was based on the ideas of political philosophy of Ch. Montesquieu, J. S. Mill, J. G. Herders and others. This initiative, called New School, has introduced (...) into the Hungarian political thought a new conception of national equality, which, together with the transformation of political starting points brought about also a transformation of political strategy in attaining the ends of the nation-building. (shrink)

Cinema is not only a space in which directors act with the aim of making art, but they also reflect their own testimonies and political perspectives; this study, which claims to be related to representation strategies that contain various interests and desires; It is of the opinion that different ideological approaches are reflected on the screen by political and cultural elites in line with the construction, legitimacy and movement of identities and images. In this study, which examines (...) the Türkiye’nin Kalbi Ankara movie, which was shot in the intense socio-political atmosphere of the 1930s and was shot to tell Turkey's nationalization process and modernization experience through the capital Ankara; the manifestation of the Turkish nation-building process in cinema is discussed through the relationship between nationalism and cinema. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 16 th century, Transylvania had been an officially Catholic land belonging to the Kingdom of Hungary and led by an elite consisting of three nations, the Hungarian nobles (increasingly referred to as the Hungarian nation), the Saxons and the Szeklers. However, the general population, deprived of any political power, consisted of Orthodox Romanians. In other words, in Transylvania the Latin West met the Byzantine Orient. The old Hungary fell apart between 1526 and 1541, its (...) central regions taken by the Ottoman Empire, the west and the north by the Habsburgs, while the eastern part, Transylvania, became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty. At the same time, various Protestant trends made their presence felt among the leading nations, eventually crystallizing in the form of Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism. In the space of three decades (1540–1570) these rival denominations gained legal status and joined Catholicism as the official religions of the country. Catholicism became a marginal denomination, deprived of assets and of its hierarchy. Under Protestant pressure, the Orthodox Romanians were still kept away from power. The last three decades of the century saw some attempts at Counterreformation and at a Catholic Reformation, at a time when the principality was once again led by a Catholic dynasty. In this context, new Catholic cultural (educational) models, supported by the Jesuits, were implemented in the existing Protestant and Orthodox context, in an often desperate attempt to reverse or at least balance the situation. In this respect, the Jesuit College of Cluj (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), established in 1581, remains a most memorable episode, whose consequences can still be seen today. By resorting to education and learning, the college was meant to influence and alter the surrounding Protestant and Orthodox world. In fact, it became an interesting facet of the multicultural, multiethnic and multiconfessional character of Transylvania, a miniature Europe inhabited by Latin, Germanic, Finno-Ugrian, Slavic peoples etc., by Byzantines, Catholics and Protestants, by rightful citizens and “tolerated” inhabitants, by masters and servants, by privileged categories and by groups merely “allowed to exist”. The troubled events of those years have left us with a model of cohabitation based on both cooperation and rivalry that truly deserves consideration. (shrink)

The relationship between ecology and democracy has a complex history and an uncertain future. Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth, and democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions herald crisis if not collapse. It is clear that our present political concepts and institutions are inadequate for meeting the challenges of living in right relation with the more-than-human world and, moreover, that these inadequacies are themselves symptoms of a failing political-cultural story (...) and a lack of concrete practices of ecological renewal, a story that does not recognize that there is no "people" without the earth and that power is not held by humans alone but in common with the natural world--intensifying weather events effected by climate change are only the most obvious example. Earthborn Democracy upends conventional accounts, which view democracy as a modern invention, by probing deep histories of egalitarian political organization beyond the ancient Athenian efforts so feared by the American founders in the premodern Americas, Mesopotamia, and many other egalitarian cultures. Unlike the constitutional democracies in nation-states, which are in service to economic directives, the political practices and stories excavated in the book illustrate the interdependence necessary to inspire and orient the work of ecological and democratic renewal. Responses to climate catastrophe call for an understanding of how unconscious desire can be a resource for collective democratic action. Developing an embodied account of the unconscious in which a desire for pleasure is central, the authors examine the knowledge and living traditions of Indigenous communities; the incorporation of "pleasure activism" into contemporary social movements and antiracist struggles; and practices of cooperation-cross-species affinity and relational grassroots political organizing around the world. The resonances across these examples trace the possibility for renewal of individual and collective selves through the work of ecological attunement and restoration. Building from re-envisioned democratic histories and this radical rereading of the collective unconscious, they show how contemporary political experiments and practices might cultivate and channel desires for autochthonous-earthborn-democracy, as the Athenian mythos names it. (shrink)

UMI Number: 3319553 This study is a historical ethnography of religious diversity in post-revolutionary Nicaragua from the vantage point of Catholics who live in the city of Masaya located on the Pacific side of Nicaragua at the end of the twentieth century. My overarching research question is: How may ethnographically observed patterns in Catholic religious practices in contemporary Nicaragua be understood in historical context? Utilizing anthropological theory and method grounded in Weberian historical theory, I explore Catholic ritual as contested politico-religious (...) cultural terrain. The patron saint celebration of Masaya becomes a contested symbol in 1999 as those who carry Saint Jerome in street procession refuse to honor a sitting president, challenging his right to rule. The deep Marian devotion of the Nicaraguan people is reflected in the household and neighborhood celebrations of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, while nation-building elites have a long history of claiming the Virgin as patron saint of the nation. While these traditional Catholic saint celebrations figure in imagining a nation, three "new" Catholic movements also compete for attention, while the polity is increasingly exposed to Protestant and Pentecostal groups. When Anastasio Somoza Debayle was overthrown in 1979, ending the 40-year family dictatorship, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ruled for a decade with the attention of the world placed on its religion of revolution, the Christian base community and liberation theology. At the same time, however, two other movements began growing quietly. They, like liberation theology, draw their justification from the second Vatican Council. In Masaya, Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Neocatechumenal Way are "exemplary" prophetic movements gaining ground within the Catholic Church in competition with the "ethical" prophets of the Christian base community. Selectively adopting "protestant-like" forms of worship through these modern movements, the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church reacts to the challenge to its cultural hegemony coming from evangelical competitors. New history is continuously being made as people in this part of Nicaragua struggle over the direction of their country within a complex terrain of religious competition. (shrink)

It is of concern that, until now, Western and Southern theories have not been able to provide a full conceptual understanding of the complicity of the elites and states of former colonies outside the West with the political domination they suffer from their Western counterparts. Decolonial thought, by exploring global epistemic designs, can fully explain such political dependency, which, for Aníbal Quijano, results from the local elites’ goal to racially identify with their Western peers (self-humanization), obstructing (...) local nationalization. We explore why the racially dehumanized local elites believe they can humanize themselves. Our claim is that this happens because of modernity’s pretense that everyone can become civilized and, thereby, human, hiding the fact that hu(man)s are only heterosexual men that are simultaneously Western, white and Christian. Only by focusing on the enunciation of Western knowledge, instead of on its enunciated content, can we make that argument. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Since the United Kingdom’s referendum on European Union (EU) membership in 2016, a new political cleavage of Remainers and Leavers has developed (Kelley, N. [2019]. British social attitudes survey: Britain’s shifting identities and attitudes. (36). National Centre for Research). This paper explores how five pro-Brexit newspapers discursively construct political division in Britain in relation to two key events in the final year of Britain’s EU membership: the extension of the withdrawal process past the original date of (...) March, and the introduction of the Benn Act in September. The paper reveals two primary discursive constructions of division in Britain: a divide between incompetent and arrogant political officials and an innocent, suffering public, and an identity cleavage between pro-Remain ‘elites’ and ‘ordinary’ Leave-voting citizens. The study argues that the construction of these divisions threatens a collective national identity in Britain at a time when it is most required. It concludes that by apportioning blame for socio-political divisions, the newspapers obfuscate their role in contributing to disunity in the UK. (shrink)

The article discusses the Kenyan post-2007 elections political crisis within the framework of ‘libertarian communitarianism’ that integrates individualistic self-interest with traditional collectivist solidarity in the era of globalization in Africa. The author argues that behind the Kenyan post-election anarchy can be analyzed as a type of ‘prisoner's dilemma’ framework in which self-interested rationality is placed in a collectivist social contract setting. In Kenya, this has allowed political manipulation of ethnicity as well as bad governance, both of which have (...) prevented the building of a strong, impartial state. In Kenya, socio-economic disparities and historical injustices due to corruption, nepotism, cronyism and other forms of favoritism have maintained ethnic and other internal tensions, which exploded into open conflict after the disputed December 2007 elections.The author shows how the ‘libertarian communitarist’ politico-economic context lacks shared values and precludes forward-looking solutions for social justice that promote public good and national unity. Instead, a nation remains divided with its people set up in competitive positions, because there is public trust neither in partisan and self-interested governments nor in inefficient state structures with often (ethnically and/or regionally) biased (re)distribution of resources and unequal service delivery. The greed of the political elites and grievances of the ordinary citizenry maintain distrust across the nation and focus on past injustices rather than finding a shared agenda for future unity.The author suggests that in order to build up public trust, to strengthen the state structures and to gain national unity, it is necessary to focus on shared values and a forward-looking concept of justice, acceptable to all. (shrink)

International agencies have contributed significantly to the promotion of capital-intensive fisheries development programs in many Third World nations. Activities of both bilateral and multilateral development assistance agencies are examined and shown to have certain common features, notably production-oriented programs typified by the introduction of powerful new fishing technologies, and the promotion of fishery exports as a means of increasing foreign exchange earnings. The argument is advanced that these programs have been largely detrimental to the best interests of recipient nations because (...) they have ignored both resource limitations and the distributional consequences of such development.Fisheries development programs in the Third World are seen as being shaped by a convergence of institutional and class interests between national and international agencies. The perspective of political economy is used to examine these interests and explain their relation to policy outcomes. Evidence is presented to show that international agencies have contributed to dualistic patterns of industry growth which have skewed development benefits towards a narrow urban elite. Rural small-scale fishers have been increasingly marginalized as a result of their inability to compete over a limited and, in some cases, depleted resource.Fisheries development and resource management need to be seen as complementary aspects of a single process rather than as separate activities. Central to fisheries management is the question of resource allocation between competing users. Suggestions are offered by which international development agencies can play an important role in encouraging resource use patterns which are both biologically sustainable and socially just. (shrink)

In contemporary scholarship on Chinese ideological debates, both pro-system Chinese intellectuals and Western-based academics present China’s future as a binary choice between a “China Model” of authoritarian statism and a “Western” vision of democratic liberalism. This article deconstructs this dichotomy by proposing a new heuristic for conceptualizing ideological cleavage. Informed by interviews with twenty-eight leading Chinese intellectuals, the case is made for a two-dimensional spectrum allowing for ideological co-variation, on one axis, between two contending socioeconomic roads of national revival, (...) capitalism and socialism, and on the other axis between paternalism and fraternalism as conflicting ideals for the political system. This model not only resonates with Chinese intellectual history, but also allows us to uncover two crucial ideological tendencies that disappear with the China Model/western Path dichotomy: (i) the emerging hybrid of Confucian politics and free market economics, and (ii) the tabooed fraternalist-socialist legacy of the 1989 movement. (shrink)

Through empirical investigation of the Eurozone and Greek debt crisis 2010–12, this article demonstrates how a peak organization of financial firms—the Institute of International Finance —was able to mobilize its members transnationally to secure several key political and economic objectives. At the height of the crisis, large European banking firms were threatened by the prospect of a disorderly Greek default, coercive intervention by governments, and, potentially, a regional banking collapse. In this context, representatives from the IIF entered the policymaking (...) process to facilitate concerted private sector action, assisting EU officials with the negotiation of a substantial and orderly creditor writedown, and cooperating with legal action by the Greek government to sideline a minority of financial firms hostile to the deal. The article shows that the IIF’s disproportionate influence over policymaking was a result of their technical expertise, their ability to recruit individuals with long-standing experience of sovereign debt restructuring from the public and private sector, and the operation of elite revolving-door processes. In contrast to recent studies showing that financial actors are able to exercise more power at the national level by remaining collectively inactive, these findings suggest that, at the transnational level, financial actors can be most effective at securing their preferences when they are well organized and when they coordinate politically on the basis of collective interests. (shrink)

This paper draws on Collins’s conflict theory to understand the contemporary surge of populism. It puts forward an account centred on citizenship rights and the state, and on ‘my nation first’ politics in four countries: the US, Sweden, India and China. Collins has identified a capitalist crisis, the dynamics of geopolitical legitimacy, and state-penetrating bureaucracy as three central processes in modern societies. Especially the last of these focuses attention on the conflict between cosmopolitan elites and ‘the people’, construed in (...) exclusionary terms, which is on the rise in all of the four cases discussed here. The paper analyses the similarities and differences between them, and sketches the prospects for populist politics. (shrink)

This article argues that an adequately historicized and politicized understanding of the women's movement in Nepal (or elsewhere) requires a detailed examination of the construction of the gendered subject herself in the complex geo-political space of the emergent (Nepali) nation state. In turn, this unravelling of the gendered subject in Nepal serves to reinforce the premise that the representation of ‘the Nepali Woman’ as a single over-arching category is a contemporary construction, which has been achieved at the expense of (...) consistently effacing the historically prior multiple and contested ethnic/caste identities taken by thrust upon women in what is now the new Nepal. The ‘natural’ goal of the women's movement since post-1990 Nepal to achieve a (single) feminist agenda has become part of the problem, as it can only be achieved at the expense of respecting the radical diversity and difference that is covered over by the ‘theoretical fiction’ of the unified nation of Nepal. The main important players, whether it be the women from mainstream political parties, or the women of the NGO world or the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), have all contributed to excluding and silencing radical diversity in the name of expediency and elite power brokering. Moreover, it is argued that the contours of this composite discourse continue to be shaped by the international aid industry in Nepal, where ‘development’ is not merely the epistemic link between Nepal and the ‘West’, it is also the locus classicus of generic apolitical consciousness-less Nepali woman whose cause is taken up by scholar and activist alike. (shrink)

This chapter reflects on why and how the forces of globalization have altered the conventional political belief systems codified by social power elites since the French Revolution. In order to explain these dramatic transformations, the chapter discusses at some length the crucial relationship between two ‘social imaginaries’—the national and the global—that underpin the articulation of political ideologies. The chapter suggests a new typology of three contemporary ‘globalisms’ based on the disaggregation of new ideational clusters not merely (...) into core concepts, but, perhaps more dynamically, into various sets of central ideological claims that play crucial semantic and political roles. These three globalisms—market globalism, justice globalism, and religious globalism—represent a set of political ideas and beliefs coherent and conceptually thick enough to warrant the status of mature ideologies. (shrink)

The article discusses the Kenyan post-2007 elections political crisis within the framework of 'libertarian communitarianism' that integrates individualistic self-interest with traditional collectivist solidarity in the era of globalization in Africa. The author argues that behind the Kenyan post-election anarchy can be analyzed as a type of 'prisoner's dilemma' framework in which self-interested rationality is placed in a collectivist social contract setting. In Kenya, this has allowed political manipulation of ethnicity as well as bad governance, both of which have (...) prevented the building of a strong, impartial state. In Kenya, socio-economic disparities and historical injustices due to corruption, nepotism, cronyism and other forms of favoritism have maintained ethnic and other internal tensions, which exploded into open conflict after the disputed December 2007 elections. The author shows how the 'libertarian communitarist' politico-economic context lacks shared values and precludes forward-looking solutions for social justice that promote public good and national unity. Instead, a nation remains divided with its people set up in competitive positions, because there is public trust neither in partisan and self-interested governments nor in inefficient state structures with often (ethnically and/or regionally) biased (re)distribution of resources and unequal service delivery. The greed of the political elites and grievances of the ordinary citizenry maintain distrust across the nation and focus on past injustices rather than finding a shared agenda for future unity. The author suggests that in order to build up public trust, to strengthen the state structures and to gain national unity, it is necessary to focus on shared values and a forward-looking concept of justice, acceptable to all. (shrink)

Christianization of Polish territories, according to the Western rite, incorporated these lands into the Western European civilization and emerging there political and legal doctrines, which were used in creating Polish political-legal thought. At the time of establishing social bonds and structures of the state, the political elite came into being and the Polish political thought developed. It corresponded with the main political thought and ideas of the West, but the Polish ideas displayed characteristics, necessary for (...) protecting the Polish raison d’etat. Development of political thought, original and particular for Polish conditions, dissimilar from the main European trends, may be a testimony to richness of intellectual and political ideas of past Polish generations. It was this political thought, that allowed the Polish national identity to survive, and caused that the fight for political independence was successful. Many contemporary researchers, including those from Western Europe, see influences of the past political ideas in the contemporary attitudes of Poles. (shrink)

This essay sheds new light on Korean democracy after democratization. It examines how the notion of ‘transcendental collectivism’, associated with familial bonds and the concept of chŏng, led to an emphasis on citizen‐empowerment. This participatory perspective replaced the militant elite‐led activism of the transitional period, which was underpinned by a Confucian ‘transcendental individualism’ predicated on the concept of ren. The argument is based on a detailed case study of a recent episode of citizen action. The article shows how the search (...) for a new democratic citizenship that was capable of overcoming the parochial regionalism that has bedeviled Korean politics for decades, led ordinary (especially young) Korean citizens to come up with a new national democratic civic ethos that corresponded to the changed political environment. This new ethos was uri‐responsibility, a uniquely Korean view of collective moral responsibility. After examining uri‐responsibility and comparing it with Kantian‐liberal accounts of responsibility, its strong democratic implications for Korea are explored. (shrink)

The category of a national interest is one of the most popular notions used in international relations. It has a polysemic character and is differently interpreted by various scientific perspectives. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief analysis of selected approaches of the theory of international relations to defining interests and correlating the interpretations of national interests of the Russian Federation performed on their bases. The choice of case study concerning the foreign policy of the (...) Russian Federation is not accidental because in countries aspiring to gain world power the concept of national interest is raised while explaining the motives of decisions taken by their leaders exceptionally often. In this article, Russia’s interests will be discussed in reference to the annexation of the Crimea and Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. Those events vividly show the specificity of defining the national interests, based on one hand on the pursue to being a powerhouse and understanding the interests in the category of power and, on the other hand, resulting from the political identity of Russian elites. As a result, an assessment of the scientific utility of selected theoretical paradigms and their use in the analyses of Russia’s foreign policy will be outlined. (shrink)

The past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of populist politics across the globe. The early 21st century saw the pink tide of left wing populism in Latin America, the Southern European populisms that rejected the politics of austerity after 2013, and the right wing populisms that now dominate not only European but global polities. Although each instance of populist politics is distinct, all share an appeal to the people, to the true people, who both oppose and are dominated by (...) the political elite. The nature of this elite also varies – in some cases it is predatory capital; in other cases it is the multicultural left; in yet others the anonymous bureaucrats in Brussels undermining national sovereignty. This special issue of RECERCA poses one question: how does populism relate to democracy? Is it democracy’s other face? (shrink)

The paper focuses on the examination of political discussion carried out in the journal „Prúdy“ in the decades preceding and following the World war I. The aim of the examination is to indicate the fundamental topic of the discussion. According to the author it was the problematic of conservatism, which had been discussed in the referential frame of the Slovak nationalism as a part of the cultural conflict, taking place between various groups of the national elite. The Slovak (...) political thinking remained for a long time marked by a cultural „schism“ between modernism and traditionalism. The discussion in the journal „Prúdy“ is therefore an important source for those, who are interested in the manners and conceptions of Slovak political modernism. (shrink)

By closely examining the sources, movements, and persons of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Voegelin reveals the roots of today's political ideologies in this fourth volume of his _History of Political Ideas._ This insightful study lays the groundwork for Voegelin's critique of the modern period and is essential to an understanding of his later analysis. Voegelin identifies not one but two distinct beginnings of the movement toward modern political consciousness: the Renaissance and the Reformation. Historically, however, the (...) powerful effects of the second have overshadowed the first. In this book, Voegelin carefully examines both periods and their presence in modern thought. The Renaissance, represented by the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, and Thomas More, is characterized by a struggle for balance. Machiavelli and Erasmus both looked to a virtuous prince to achieve order, one calling for brute force and the other for Christian spirituality to reach their goal. Also a participant in the first beginning of modernity, More was a complex thinker identified as a saint both of the church and of the communist movement. The issues he explored in _Utopia,_ as Voegelin demonstrates, indirectly gave rise to concepts that have profoundly affected Western history: colonization, imperialism, national socialism, and communism. Exploring the transition from the Renaissance to the Reformation is a brilliant chapter, "The People of God," which examines the sectarian movement. These pages contain the rich historical background that led to Voegelin's later conclusions about Gnosticism and its modern influences. Voegelin offers a controversial view of the Reformation as well as the political and religious situation directly preceding it. Yet he sheds light on the strengths and inadequacies of its key figures, Martin Luther and John Calvin. The driving force behind the Reformation stemmed solely from the powerful personality of Luther. What began as an abstract, purely technical discussion developed into a full-blown revolt. Later in the period, Calvin confronted the problems left behind by Luther and endeavored to create his own universal church to supplant the Catholic Church. His theory of a new elite would have a distinct impact on history. By examining the political ideas that first emerged during the Renaissance and Reformation, this fascinating volume provides a foundation for understanding the events of centuries to follow. (shrink)

Emphasizing the relevance of celibate singleness for the French women's movement, Ly affirmed that "more and more, we will recruit the elite of our adepts and militants from these noble freethinkers, these inspiring rebels" who were not legally "under their husbands' authority" or otherwise restricted by familial obligations.1 Given the early twentieth-century context of heightened national fears about France's flagging birth rate and the degeneration of the French "race," Ly's argument for political spinsterhood hardly encountered a popular reception, (...) either within liberal or feminist circles. Citing passionate fears of female political activism and the New Woman against an anxious background of nationalistic and conservative revival, scholars have underscored the French movement's need to present a nonviolent and "feminine" image to the public, one that did not openly challenge women's primary sexual, marital, or reproductive roles.5 Historian Karen Offen has most notably argued that the majority of feminists in France emphasized women's "maternal and nurturant functions" and stressed the notion of "equality-in-difference" rather than espousing a more individualistic Anglo-American philosophy.6 Although maternity and sexual difference were certainly dominant tropes in French feminist discourse, focusing on the question of single women allows us to view the French movement from a different angle. (shrink)