Can Rawlsian theory provide us with an adequate response to the practical question of how we should proceed in the face of widespread and intractable disagreement over matters of justice? Recent criticism of ideal theorizing might make us wonder whether this question highlights another way in which ideal theory can be too far removed from our non-ideal circumstances to provide any practical guidance. Further reflection on it does not show that ideal theory is redundant, but it does indicate that (...) there is a need for a non-ideal theory that does not consist simply in an account of how to apply the principles which are yielded by ideal theory to non-ideal circumstances in the light of what is feasible and an assessment of the costs of implementation. Indeed any non-ideal theory that can adequately address this question will have to be partially autonomous, drawing on a notion of legitimacy that is rather different to the one which lies at the heart of Rawlsian ideal theory. (shrink)

The article argues that Rawls’s property-owning democracy should not be understood as a necessary standard of democratic legitimacy. This position contradicts Rawls’s own understanding to some extent, but a rejoinder with elements of political liberalism is possible. He concedes that justice as fairness is a ‘comprehensive liberal doctrine’ and that a well ordered society affirming such a doctrine ‘contradicts reasonable pluralism’. Rawls makes clear that reasonable pluralism in combination with the burdens of judgment lead to rare unanimity in political life (...) and to the necessity of majority and plurality voting procedures. (shrink)

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some (...) cases, the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how, if at all, citizens can sustain an effective sense of political belonging without sacrificing other sources of ethical identity. We begin with a critical analysis of Rousseau's classic considerations of politics and religion, which concludes that membership of a sub-political ethical community is incompatible with an effective sense of political belonging. This critique leads us to a consideration of the basic character of contemporary constitutional-democratic polities (drawing on the work of James Tully) (...) and of Waldron's account of the circumstances of politics. These considerations are developed into the claim that we can identify two sources of political belonging: recognition and acknowledgement - which correspond to two aspects of democratic citizenship: as status and as mode of being. On the basis of this claim, we argue that an effective sense of political belonging can be compatible with membership of sub-political ethical communities iff members of the political community are characterised by the majoritarian virtue of civic responsiveness and the minoritarian virtue of civic endurance. We sketch the character of these virtues and the relationship to one another in arguing that only the widespread presence of both kinds of virtue is sufficient to secure citizens' confidence in the polity and hence its stability. (shrink)

Elections are generally considered the only way to create a democratic legislature where direct democracy is not an option. However, in recent years that assumption has been challenged by individuals who claim that lotteries are a democratic way of selecting people for office, elections are aristocratic or oligarchic, not democratic, and that elections as we know them are inadequate if true democracy is prioritized. In opposition to this wave, my paper argues that the assertions made to support the democratic merits (...) of lotteries are unpersuasive. Current evidence that sortition is either more egalitarian or produces epistemically better results than elections is poor. Instead, these assertions illuminate the importance of elections in enabling the constituents of a democracy to reconcile the personal and political dimensions of their lives and, therefore, better reflect citizens’ claims to privacy and equality. The paper begins by recapping the main arguments for treating sortition as a democratic way to select a legislature, outlines their deficiencies, and then turns to what these perceived failings actually suggest about the democratic value of elections. (shrink)

Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary disputes, and environmental (...) crises. Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

Some key political challenges today, e.g. climate change, are future oriented. The intergenerational setting differs in some notable ways from the intragenerational one, creating obstacles to theorizing about intergenerational justice. One concern is that as the circumstances of justice do not pertain intergenerationally, intergenerational justice is not meaningful. In this paper, I scrutinize this worry by analysing the presentations of the doctrine of the circumstances of justice by David Hume and John Rawls. I argue that we should accept (...) the upshot of their idea, that justice is context sensitive, even if this at first sight seems to invalidate intergenerational justice. On the basis of moral constructivism, I subsequently provide a fresh reading of the doctrine according to which it conveys the idea that justice is the solution to a practical problem. However, as the problem background is evolving, we need to properly characterize the relevant practical problem in order to make ethical theorizing relevant. Contrary to what has been claimed, the circumstances of justice do not then clash with intergenerational justice, but are the necessary presuppositions for its advancement. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the circumstances of justice, that is, the background conditions that are necessary and sufficient for justice to exist between individual parties in society. Contemporary political philosophers almost unanimously accept an account of these circumstances attributed to David Hume. I argue that the conditions of this standard account are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for justice. In particular, I contend that both a Hobbesian state of nature and a prisoner’s dilemma are cases in which (...) the conditions of the standard account obtain and yet no justice exists between parties. I propose an alternative set of generic circumstances of justice motivated by examples from game theory. Parties are in these generic circumstances with respect to each other when: (1) they are engaged in a conflictual coordination game with multiple strict Nash equilibrium points where, at any of these equilibria, some parties do not receive their greatest payoffs, and (2) they have common knowledge that each party is rational and follows her end of a strict equilibrium where no party receives her greatest payoff. These two conditions reflect the idea that justice requires all parties to make some sacrifices so that others can have more of the goods they need and want. I argue that these generic circumstances are necessary and sufficient conditions for parties to follow generic norms of justice, that is, mutually beneficial practices that require some sacrifices. Key Words: common knowledge • conflictual coordination • correlated equilibrium • moderate selfishness • moderate variable scarcity • rough equality. (shrink)

"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, existential (...) phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

Liberal political theory sees justice as the "first virtue" of a good society, the virtue that guides individuals' conceptions of their own good, and protects the equal liberty of all to pursue their ends, so long as these ends and pursuits are just. But ever since Marx's declaration that "liberty as a right of man is not founded upon the relations between man and man, but rather upon the separation of man from man...,"i liberal society has been frequently criticized for (...) falling seriously short of the conditions of a good society.ii A prominent recent criticism of this sort has been voiced by "communitarians," who charge that the primacy of rights in liberalism reveals a failure to appreciate the value of friendship and community, and tends to undermine their possibility.iii My aim in this paper is to defend liberal political theory, understood as the theory that justifies a polity of individual rights and justice, against this charge.iv My main argument will be directed at the assumption that there is an inherent tension between rights and justice on the one hand, and familial love and friendship on the other. According to the communitarian, two or more individuals constitute a community when they share a common conception of the good, and see this good as partly constitutive of their identities or selves.v Such "constitutive community," in Michael Sandel's words, may be a close friendship or family relationship, or an intermediate association such as a neighborhood organization, or a comprehensive political community. The communitarian charges that in making justice the first virtue of social institutions, liberalism undermines community at all levels, and this for two reasons. First, liberalism demands that we revise or surrender our conceptions of the good - including our attachments and commitments to family and friends - if they should turn out to be unjust. But this demand, the communitarian claims, requires attitudes 2 that are inconsistent with these attachments and commitments.. (shrink)

It is a distinctive feature of the global political order that democracy is no longer confined to nation-states, characterized by extensive and overlapping constituencies. It is important to think of the significance of these developments for individuals’ self-determination, which may be undermined in different ways. Here it is argued that democracy must serve to delegate power to complex units of decision making which favour self-determination. Contestability is part of this form of self-determination, allowing forms of politics to emerge based (...) on the democratic rights and powers of self-determining, non-dominated citizens. (shrink)

In the last two centuries, our world would have been a safer place if philosophers such as Rousseau, Marx, and Nietzsche had not given intellectual encouragement to the radical ideologies of Jacobins, Stalinists, and fascists. Maybe the world would have been better off, from the standpoint of sound practice, if philosophers had engaged in only modest, decent theory, as did John Stuart Mill. Yet, as Ronald Beiner contends, the point of theory is not to think safe thoughts; the point is (...) to open intellectual horizons. In Philosophy in a Time of Lost Spirit, Beiner reflects on the dualism of theory and practice. The purpose of the theorist is not to offer sensible guidance on the conduct of social life but to test the boundaries of our vision of social order. Whereas the liberal citizen should embody the practical virtues of prudence and moderation, the theorist should be radical, probing, and immoderate. Looking back at the liberal-communitarian debate of the 1980s, Beiner recognizes that the antidote to our spiritless times lies neither in the embrace of community over individualism nor of individualism over community: both individual and community need to be submitted to radical questioning. It is by exposing ourselves to the challenge of fearless thinking encountered at the philosophical extremities that we are most likely to understand our own world at a deeper level. In this collection of essays and reviews, Ronald Beiner helps us to think critically about the thought-worlds of our foremost contemporary thinkers, including Hannah Arendt, Allan Bloom, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, J¦rgen Habermas, Will Kymlicka, Christopher Lasch, Richard Rorty, Judith Shklar, Leo Strauss, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer. (shrink)

A collection of essays representing diverse approaches to feminist ethical analysis of social policy. Subjects include the Family and Medical Leave Act, combat exclusion and the role of women in the military, unwed fathers' rights, mail-order brides, pornography, breast implants, and sex-selective abortion. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

A broadly liberal politics requires political compassion; not simply in the sense of compassion for the victims of injustice, but also for opponents confronted through political protest and (more broadly) dissent. There are times when, out of a sense of compassion, a just cause should not be pressed. There are times when we need to accommodate the dreadfulness of loss for opponents, even when the cause for which they fight is unjust. We may also have to come to terms (...) with the irreversibility of historic injustice and reconcile. Political compassion of this sort carries risks. Pushed too far, it may weaken our commitment to justice through too great a sympathy for those on the other side. It would be convenient if such compassion could be constrained by a clear set of political principles. But principles run the quite different risk of promoting an 'ossified dissent', unable to respond to change. In this book, Tony Milligan argues that principles are only a limited guide to dissent in unique, contingent circumstances. They will not tell us how to deal with the truly difficult cases such as the following: Should the Lakota celebrate Thanksgiving? When is the crossing of a picket-line justified? What kind of toleration must animal rights advocates cultivate to make progress within a broadly liberal political domain? And how should we respond to the entangling of aspiration towards social justice with anger and prejudice (such as the 'anti-Zionist' discourse)? We may be tempted to answer these questions by presupposing that alignment (the business of choosing sides) is ultimately more important than compassion, but sometimes political compassion trumps alignment. Sometimes, being on the right side is not the most important thing. (shrink)

This article discusses the place of integrity in Ronald Dworkin's legal and political philosophy. It presents integrity as a response to certain problems that arise in any society in which more than one contestant view about justice is allowed to determine public policy and legal principle. It also analyzes the relation between integrity and justice, arguing that although integrity requires citizens and officials sometimes to uphold policies or positions they take to be unjust, Dworkin is nevertheless wrong to present them (...) ascompetingpolitical virtues. Instead, integrity operates as a second-level concept, addressing situations that arise in a society where there is disagreement about justice (and where, therefore, there is no uncontroversial account of what justice requires to set against the requirements of integrity). The article concludes with some reflections on the role of individual convictions about justice in context of law and social action. (shrink)

An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical (...) disagreement is more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen’s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be. (shrink)

Does political decision-making require experts or can a democracy be trusted to make correct decisions? This question has a long-standing tradition in political philosophy, going back at least to Plato’s Republic. Critics of democracy tend to argue that democracy cannot be trusted in this way while advocates tend to argue that it can. Both camps agree that it is the epistemic quality of the outcomes of political decision-making processes that underpins the legitimacy of political institutions. In recent political philosophy, epistemic (...) democrats have embraced this instrumentalist way of thinking about democracy. In this chapter, I argue that the attempt to defend democracy on epistemic instrumentalist grounds is self-undermining. I also develop an alternative – procedural – epistemic defence of democracy. I show that there is a prima facie epistemic case for democracy when there is no procedure-independent epistemic authority on the issue to be decided. (shrink)

An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume,...

I focus on the mutual advantage conception of justice and on a related Humean argument according to which “the circumstances of justice” obtain only when there is a conflict of ends, a suitable level of scarcity, and rough equality of power. I add to the challenges facing the argument by using a Millian illustration whose significance has not been appreciated in prior discussions of the circumstances of justice to show that, contrary to a key premise of the Humean (...) argument, restraining ground rules concerning entitlement can be mutually advantageous even if there is no conflict of ends or rough equality of power. It follows from my reasoning that, if justice has a place and point when restraining ground rules concerning entitlement would be mutually advantageous, the circumstances of justice can obtain without a conflict of ends or rough equality of power. (shrink)

In this paper I unpack a realistic conception of politics by tightly defining its constitutive features: conflict and order. A conflict emerges when an actor is disposed to impose his/her views against the resistance of others. Conflicts are more problematic than moralists realize because they emerge unilaterally, are potentially violent, impermeable to content-based reason, and unavoidable. Order is then defined as an institutional framework that provides binding collective decisions. Order is deemed necessary because individuals need to cooperate to survive, (...) but groups cannot spontaneously secure collective decisions and are prone to conflicts. Particularly, the fact that potentially violent conflicts emerge unilaterally means that order requires coercion. I conclude that mischaracterizing conflict and order leads to undesirable normative principles, and that this criticism can be leveraged not only against Rawlsian liberals who moralize conflicts away, but also against some agonists who underestimate the need for order and some communitarians who underplay both circumstances. (shrink)

In this paper I unpack a realistic conception of politics by tightly defining its constitutive features: conflict and order. A conflict emerges when an actor is disposed to impose his/her views against the resistance of others. Conflicts are more problematic than moralists realize because they emerge unilaterally, are potentially violent, impermeable to content-based reason, and unavoidable. Order is then defined as an institutional framework that provides binding collective decisions. Order is deemed necessary because individuals need to cooperate to survive, (...) but groups cannot spontaneously secure collective decisions and are prone to conflicts. Particularly, the fact that potentially violent conflicts emerge unilaterally means that order requires coercion. I conclude that mischaracterizing conflict and order leads to undesirable normative principles, and that this criticism can be leveraged not only against Rawlsian liberals who moralize conflicts away, but also against some agonists who underestimate the need for order and some communitarians who underplay both circumstances. (shrink)

First published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, it is 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made (...) Russell's History of Western Philosophy one of the most important philosophical works of all time. (shrink)

In the last couple of years, increased attention has been directed at the question of whether there is such a thing as a distinctively political normativity. With few exceptions, this question has so far only been explored by political realists. However, the discussion about a distinctively political normativity raises methodological and meta-theoretical questions of general importance for political theory. Although the terminology varies, it is a widely distributed phenomenon within political theory to rely on a normative source which is said (...) to be political rather than moral, or at least foremost political. In light of this concern, the present paper moves beyond political realism in the attempt to explore alternative ways of understanding distinctively political normativity, in a way which may be useful for political theorists. More specifically, we investigate two candidate views, here labelled the “domain view” and the “role view,” respectively. The former traces distinctness to the “domain,” that is, to the circumstances of politics. This view has gained a lot of support in the literature in recent years. The latter traces distinctness to “role,” that is, the role-specific demands that normative-political principles make. Our twofold claim in this paper is that the domain view is problematic but that the role view is promising. (shrink)

Published in two volumes or as a set this provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation of Malthus's (...) economics because of the absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. There is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

Published in two volumes or as a set this provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation of Malthus's (...) economics because of the absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. There is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

This set provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions, and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation of Malthus's economics because of the absence of any (...) systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. there is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

This paper introduces a series of lectures Ernst Kantorowicz offered to the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943 in order to reconsider the development of his intellectual biography. These “wartime lectures” constitute Kantorowicz’s only sustained discussion of modern German history and his only intellectual engagement with Nazism. Introducing these lectures thus presents an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between Kantorowicz’s early and mature works through his assessment of Nazi Germany. For Kantorowicz, Nazism was the violent result of a German commitment (...) to political prophecy. At the core of Kantorowicz’s lectures was a criticism of political theology and its role in modern history. In making this criticism, Kantorowicz simultaneously distanced himself from the prophetic register of his earlier writings. Moreover, recovering Kantorowicz’s concern with modern political theology is also important in foregrounding the intellectual genealogy of The King’s Two Bodies, a work often separated from its more telling subtitle: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Together, this paper argues that the most significant changes in Kantorowicz’s writings can be traced to the intellectual circumstances of the Second World War. (shrink)

This essay aims to demonstrate how attention to black political thought might expand and complicate our understanding of modern politics and the conceptualization of the political in contemporary political theory, and in modern politics more generally. Black political thought can be viewed as the attempt to develop a set of critical tools to help explain the political distinctiveness of black life-worlds and how this distinctiveness is structured by a series of relations between individual and community, self and other, (...) state and society, citizen and non-citizen, and national and multinational (or global) circumstances. Too often, black politics is exclusively considered as a form of minority group politics and phenomena reducible to empirical investigation and observation, rather than a set of practices with underlying conceptual, theoretical, and epistemological premises. If we understand race as a fundamentally relational concept, namely, an assumption of dynamic interaction between two or more putatively distinct groups, and racism as a political phenomena that is conditioned and articulated through politics, then taken together they provide the opportunity for reflection and consideration of how black peoples and subjects have conceptualized, created and engaged in politics, political communities, and their articulation. Race and racism, the modalities of political participation and, conversely, the modalities of political exclusion have been recurrent themes in black political thought. The distinctiveness of black political thought is symptomatic of the distinctive trajectories of black politics, which first emerged from spaces of exclusion in Western polities and colonies. The histories of black political and social movements provide evidence of the ways in which black subordination in Western societies and polities required the reconfiguration of the actual boundaries between the public and private, the political and the social. Race and racism, the distinction between identity and identification, black solidarities, and the relationship between history, context, and politics and the political are themes central to black political thought. (shrink)

The phrase, ‘political obligation’, is far more popular in English than in other European languages. Whether this may be due to historical circumstances, or to a peculiar bent of the English mind, is a fascinating question; but it is not the one which I propose to discuss here today. I am mentioning it only to explain the choice of my subject, a subject which would probably sound rather uncommon to an Italian audience, but which, I am sure, has a (...) familiar ring to English ears. My subject, I would like to emphasise, is the nature of political obligation; my approach will be analytical rather than historical; and indeed, let me say at once that this lecture is a kind of examen de conscience in which I am myself involved, since I feel personally responsible for having introduced the phrase into my own native language, and for having used it during a life-time as if its meaning were self-evident, without ever raising the questions which I want to raise today. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the developing area of feminist scholarship on women and political violence, through a study of women in one of Europe's oldest illegal armed movements, the radical Basque nationalist organization ETA. By tracing the changing patterns of women's participation in ETA over the past four decades, the article highlights the historical factors that help explain the choice of a small number of Basque women to participate directly in political violence, and shows how these factors have (...) differed from those for men. While the gender politics of radical nationalism are intricately linked to cross-cultural associations of militarism with certain forms of masculinity, the article also stresses the importance of understanding women's activism in ETA in the context of the organization's characteristic as an ethnic nationalist movement, as well as the wider historical circumstances of the movement's development, including the modernization of Spanish and Basque society over the past four decades. Although comparisons with women in other armed movements are possible, such historical specificities undermine any attempt to construct a universal theory of women and ‘terrorism’, such as Robin Morgan's ‘couple terrorism’ thesis. Finally, the article examines the changing representations of female ETA activists in the Spanish and Basque media. Although women ETA activists are now regarded as ‘normal’, popular representations continue to link women's armed activism with deviant sexuality and the transgression of their natural destiny as mothers. The different treatment of women is evident as well in claims of sexual torture made by some detainees. The article concludes that although the participation of women in political violence poses disquieting questions for the largely anti-militarist women's movement, case studies of women in armed organizations, as well as their place in the wider practices of conflict, are an important contribution both to feminist debates about violence and to wider studies of political violence. (shrink)

In 1939, under pressure to take a more definitive political position, the editors of the literary journal Scrutiny, under the leadership of F. R. Leavis, convened a symposium titled “The Claims of Politics,” on the question of whether political advocacy had a place in a journal dedicated to literature and the arts. This remains a salient question to the present day. This paper considers the circumstances that led to the symposium and specifically considers the contribution of conservative political (...) philosopher Michael Oakeshott and his position that the introduction of politics into the arts would serve neither well. (shrink)

In this article I analyse the structural and cultural conditions of low-caste women's political agency in urban north India. Whereas in Western feminist political theory, the sexual division of labour is considered to be a key constraint for women's political participation, I show how this has a secondary relevance in the context analysed. I argue that issues concerning the division of labour are intertwined with and subject to those of male consent and support for women's activities. I illustrate how it (...) is often the supposedly ‘oppressive’ household boundaries rather than alternative outer spaces that, under a series of enabling circumstances, initiate women's political activities. Against this backdrop, I show how Indian women activists’ political agency is shaped by men's role, and how agency's relational nature is embedded in women's lifecycles, everyday practices and cultural expectations; in essence, in overall gendered agency. Comparative analyses between Western and non-Western models of political participation and discourse have only just begun. In this respect, I contribute to this nascent field in the following directions: not only do the arguments I present in this article challenge the individualistic Western subject of political action, but they also complicate the idea of the resulting empowerment as a culturally constructed process whose understanding arises from the dialectics between insider and outsider values. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Dark Arts of Politics:Aesthetics and Engineering in Nazism and FascismJonathan AllenThe Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, by Eric Michaud, translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, 271 pp.Building Fascism, Communism, and Liberal Democracy: Gaetano Ciocca—Architect, Inventor, Farmer, Writer, Engineer, by Jeffrey T. Schnapp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, 291 pp.Despite their obvious centrality to the history of the twentieth century, sixty years after the (...) defeat of the Axis powers fascism and Nazism remain elusive phenomena, hard to define with any real clarity. Scholars wrangle not only over the identification of their central characteristics but also over whether the similarities between fascism and Nazism are close enough to justify considering them as parts of a single category. A growing number of studies, however, ranging from general histories such as Norman Davies's Europe: A History and Mark Mazower's Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, to more specialized works such as Zeev Sternhell's Neither Left Nor Right and Robert Paxton's fine The Anatomy of Fascism, argue the case for treating fascism and Nazism together.1 A mark of all of these books is their willingness to give serious attention to fascist ideologies and to the interactions between these ideologies and fascist practice and culture. This interest, in turn, makes it necessary to examine anew broader questions about the relations between fascism and the circumstances and attitudes of modern life.The two works under consideration here—The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, by Eric Michaud, and Building Fascism, Communism, and Liberal Democracy, by Jeffrey T. Schnapp—share the growing concern to take seriously fascist ideology and culture as essential to an understanding of the movement. Michaud sets out to present an analysis of Nazi myth, which he argues was constructed with reference to two models: art and Christianity (xii). His immensely erudite study relates Nazi conceptions of the leader to Romantic views of genius and Christian doctrines concerning the role of the Savior. This allows him to present a distinctive view of Nazi ideology, one that relates it to themes and debates that have figured prominently in the history of European culture and belief. [End Page 113]Schnapp, on the other hand, focuses on the career of a single man—Gaetano Ciocca. Though Ciocca is now an obscure figure, unlikely to be familiar even to most students of fascism, Schnapp argues that his career deserves attention for several reasons. In the first place, he "strove to translate a fascist politics into the language of modern technics in the domains of architecture, urbanism, theater design, animal husbandry, drainage and transportation systems" (7). What is more, Ciocca was no power-hungry opportunist but rather a committed and reflective intellectual, who spent much of his time writing books and articles aimed at explaining and justifying his various projects to a general audience. Last but not least, though Ciocca's passionate commitment to fascism cooled as World War II wore on, this had no visible effect on his engineering projects. In the aftermath of the war, Ciocca presented himself as a nonpolitical "rebuilder" concerned to provide for popular need. In this guise, he served Italy's postwar liberal democracy as enthusiastically as he had previously devoted his projects to the cause of fascism. Ciocca thus presents us with an intriguing puzzle: a committed and reflective fascist intellectual—no Eichmann, Schnapp insists—who was nevertheless able to function equally effectively after the demise of the fascist regime. Schnapp argues that Ciocca's career forces us to examine with care the complex relations between technologies and political ideologies. In fact, I think it compels us to consider more general questions about the extent to which Ciocca's conception of himself as a modernizing technocrat could be equally at home in the political contexts of fascism and a certain kind of elite-centered liberal democracy. Schnapp hints at this issue at several moments but does not address it in a sustained way.Though there have been some notable exceptions, most studies of Nazism in particular have tended to gravitate toward one of two explanatory options. The first, more common in philosophical circles, has been to view... (shrink)

This article considers revolution as a political clash and revolutionism as an aesthetic position, which is a topic inspired by the philosophical, social, and aesthetic experience of the twentieth century. This topic has been considered on the eve of the 100-year anniversary of the October Revolution. The author proceeds from the claim that one of the theatrical geniuses, Vsevolod E. Meyerhold, was, above all, a man of politics, while the other, Yevgeny B. Vakhtangov, was first and foremost a man (...) of art. The revolutionary pathos of Vakhtangov’s work is paradoxically actualized through the concept of myth and compassion as an alternative to cruelty and destruction. The personality of Meyerhold is described within the context of the revolutionary scene and in the unique mode of revolutionary nature and action. The experience of these theatrical geniuses in all their personal contradictions and artistic difference shows that it is possible to live during a time of revolution, but it is impossible to live in a constant state of revolution. Only creativity, as a source of hope and harmony, is an alternative to chaos and destruction. (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

In his essay?The Protestant Ethic? Max Weber explains the specific economic development and the foundation of capitalism in Western Europe due to the appearance of protestant sects and the?spirit of capitalism?. By doing so, Weber assigns religion a significant place among the factors of social and economic development. Taking Weber?s theory and argumentation as a starting point, this article drafts a thesis on?orthodox ethic? and determines its role in the development of the?spirit of capitalism? in orthodox countries. For that purpose (...) this article compares political-historical circumstances on the territory of the Western and Eastern Church on one, and pictures the theological-philosophical basis of both Protestantism and Orthodoxy on the other side. U svom eseju?Protestantska etika? Maks Veber specifican ekonomski razvoj i utemeljenje kapitalizma u zemljama Zapadne Evrope objasnjava po?javom protestantskih sekti i svojevrsnim protestantskim?duhom kapitalizma?, dodeljujuci na taj nacin religiji znacajno mesto medju ciniocima drustvenog i ekonomskog razvoja. Polazeci od Veberove teorije i argumentacije, u ovom radu se zeli postaviti teza o?pravoslavnoj etici? i odrediti njena uloga u razvoju?duhu kapitalizma? u pravoslavnim zemljama. Pri tome se uporedjuju kako politicki-istorijske okolnosti na teritoriji Zapadne odn. Istocne crkve, tako i teolosko-filozofske osnove protestantizma s jedne, i pravoslavlja s druge strane. (shrink)

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

Efficiency requires legislative political institutions. There are many ways efficiency can be promoted, and so an ongoing legislative institution is necessary to resolve this choice in a politically sustainable and economically flexible way. This poses serious problems for classical liberal proposals to constitutionally protect markets from government intervention, as seen in the work of Ilya Somin, Guido Pincione & Fernando Tesón and others. The argument for the political nature of efficiency is set out in terms of both Pareto optimality and (...) aggregate welfare maximisation, and similar arguments can be generalised to other social values. (shrink)