Weighing complex sets of evidence (i.e., from multiple disciplines and often divergent in implications) is increasingly central to properly informed decision-making. Determining “where the weight of evidence lies” is essential both for making maximal use of available evidence and figuring out what to make of such evidence. Weighing evidence in this sense requires an approach that can handle a wide range of evidential sources (completeness), that can combine the evidence with rigor, and that can do so in a way (...) other experts can assess and critique (transparency). But the democratic context in need of weight-of-evidence analysis also places additional constraints on the process, including communicability of the process to the general public, the need for an approach that can be used across a broad range of contexts (scope), and timeliness of process (practicality). I will compare qualitative and quantitative approaches with respect to both traditional epistemic criteria and criteria that arise from the democratic context, and argue that a qualitative explanatory approach can best meet the criteria and elucidate how to utilize the other approaches. This should not be surprising, as the approach I argue for is the one that most closely tracks general scientific reasoning. (shrink)

This paper draws from two central intuitions that characterize modern western societies. The first is the normative claim that our identities should be recognized in an authentic way. The second intuition is that our common matters are best organized through democratic decision-making and democratic institutions. It is argued here that while deliberative democracy is a promising candidate for just organization of recognition relationships, it cannot fulfil its promise if recognition is understood either as recognition of ‘authentic’ (...) collective identities or as recognition of too atomistic or individualized subjects. If deliberative democracy is to be understood as successfully providing authentic recognition of individual identities, it requires a specific understanding of how individuals’ recognition needs and desires are collectively and institutionally constituted. Furthermore, it is argued that even if deliberative democracy can provide the necessary circumstances for individual self-realization, it comes with homogenizing tendencies and cannot fully avoid the problems of multiculturalism. (shrink)

In recent years, several remarkable results have shown that certain theorems of finite combinatorics are unprovable in certain logical systems. These developments have been instrumental in stimulating research in both areas, with the interface between logic and combinatorics being especially important because of its relation to crucial issues in the foundations of mathematics which were raised by the work of Kurt Godel. Because of the diversity of the lines of research that have begun to shed light on these issues, there (...) was a need for a comprehensive overview which would tie the lines together. This volume fills that need by presenting a balanced mixture of high quality expository and research articles that were presented at the August 1985 AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference, held at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.With an introductory survey to put the works into an appropriate context, the collection consists of papers dealing with various aspects of 'unprovable theorems and fast-growing functions'. Among the topics addressed are: ordinal notations, the dynamical systems approach to Ramsey theory, Hindman's finite sums theorem and related ultrafilters, well quasiordering theory, uncountable combinatorics, nonstandard models of set theory, and a length-of-proof analysis of Godel's incompleteness theorem. Many of the articles bring the reader to the frontiers of research in this area, and most assume familiarity with combinatorics and/or mathematical logic only at the senior undergraduate or first-year graduate level. (shrink)

Chinese liberals have been searching for a just society, one regulated by democratic institutions and rules—a society where the human potential for evil is properly controlled. It is in this context that Chinese liberal intellectuals such as Yan Jiaqi, Hu Ping, and Liao Xun, drawing on their respective experiences of the tragedies in China, have taken the idea that there is always a potential for evil in human nature as a starting-point for a just society and for designing (...) democratic institutions. (shrink)

Mi problema es como reconciliar una fundamentación racional de instituciones democráticas, que en nuestras sociedades tienden a ser de índole liberal, con la creciente complejidad demográfica de las sociedades contemporáneas. Mi punto de vista es que esta fundamentación debería ser deliberativa y discursiva, es decir, debería garantizar una participación reflexiva de todos los ciudadanos en el diseño y sostenimiento de sus instituciones públicas. Ahora bien, ¿cómo alcanzar este ideal en sociedades cuyas complejidades dificultan la coordinación de intereses y la participación (...) discursiva, lo que vuelve a sus ciudadanos dispuestos a sacrificar sus libertades para rendirlas a un poder político despótico y totalitario? Palabras claves: instituciones democráticas y sociedades complejas; democracia deliberativa. The constitution of democratic citizenship and the problem of the foundation of knowledge in complex societiesMy problem is how to reconcile a rational foundation of democratic institutions, which in our societies tend to be of a liberal nature, with the increasing demographic complexity of contemporary societies. My contention is that this rational and liberal foundation ought to be deliberative and discursive, that is to say, it must guarantee a reflective participation of all citizens in the design and maintenance of their public institutions. However, how could this ideal be achieved within societies with such complexities that make coordination of interests and discursive participation difficult, thus making their citizens willing to sacrifice their liberties, in order to surrender them to a despotic or totalitarian political power? Keywords: Democratic institutions and complex societies; Deliberative democracy. (shrink)

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates. Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to present-day debates (...) and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper. Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-a-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good. "This superb study simultaneously introduces and critically engages the work of one of the most important and neglected Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, while showing its connection to the pluralist tradition and bringing it to bear on the contemporary debate about civil society. More than just providing an overview of Dooyeweerd's thought, it seeks to advance his intellectual project and show its contemporary relevance. It is essential reading not only for those interested in the neo-Calvinist tradition, but for anyone interested in Christian social thought, structural pluralism, or the nature and fate of civil society." --_Kenneth L. Grasso, Texas State University _ "The subtlety, scope, and insightfulness of Dooyeweerd's social philosophy were unparalleled among Protestant thinkers in the past century. Yet his contributions are not well known. Jonathan Chaplin promises to remedy this neglect. His lucid and masterful study brings a new and transformative voice to contemporary debates about the future of a democratic society." --_Lambert Zuidervaart, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto_ "Finally, an authoritative book that brings to brilliant light and life Herman Dooyeweerd's Christian philosophy of law, politics, and society. For the past half century, the profound and original teachings of this prolific Dutch sage have been lost on most readers. Jonathan Chaplin has rescued Dooyeweerd from his own obscure prose, poor translations, and cultic mystique to reveal his astonishing and engaging insights into our lives as persons and peoples, rulers and citizens, preachers and parishioners, parents and children. This will be the go-to book on Dooyeweerd for many years to come." --_John Witte, Jr., Emory University_ "Herman Dooyeweerd was both deep and original. Much of his writing is an articulation of rather undeveloped lines of thought in his Dutch predecessor, Abraham Kuyper. In the course of his exposition, Chaplin effectively highlights Dooyeweerd's significance for a theory of civil society and for present-day social theory in general." --_Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia_. (shrink)

The complexity of human societies of the past few thousand years rivals that of social insect societies. We hypothesize that two sets of social “instincts” underpin and constrain the evolution of complex societies. One set is ancient and shared with other social primate species, and one is derived and unique to our lineage. The latter evolved by the late Pleistocene, and led to the evolution of institutions of intermediate complexity in acephalous societies. The (...) class='Hi'>institutions of complex societies often conflict with our social instincts. The complex societies of the past few thousand years can function only because cultural evolution has created effective “work-arounds” to manage such instincts. We describe a series of work-arounds and use the data on the relative effectiveness of WWII armies to test the work-around hypothesis. (shrink)

One of the challenges facing complex democratic societies marked by deep normative disagreements and differences along lines of race, gender, sexuality, culture and religion is how the perspectives of diverse individuals and social groups can be made effectively present in the deliberative process. In response to this challenge, a number of political theorists have argued that empathetic perspective-taking is critical for just democratic deliberation, and that a well-functioning democracy requires the cultivation in citizens of empathetic skills (...) and virtues. In this paper, we begin by distinguishing several kinds of imaginative projection and corresponding kinds of empathy. On the basis of this analysis, we suggest that genuine empathetic perspective-taking, especially across gendered, racial and embodied differences, is more challenging than is often assumed in the literature. This poses a dilemma for theorists who place great store on the role of empathetic imagination to overcome the challenges of democratic deliberation. On the one hand, placing responsibilities for empathetic perspective-taking primarily on the socially privileged raises risks of inaccurate and inappropriate projection. On the other hand, mitigating the risks of projection by calling on the socially marginalised to articulate their experiences and feelings in a way that can engage the imagination of the socially privileged, risks perpetuating epistemic injustice. We suggest that while this dilemma may be difficult to overcome, its effects can nevertheless be mitigated through both the cultivation of individual deliberative virtues and pragmatic institutional responses. (shrink)

Health-care goods are goods with peculiar properties, and where they are scarce, societies face potentially explosive distributional conflicts. Animated public and academic debates on the necessity and possible justice of limit-setting in health care have taken place in the last decades and have recently taken a turn toward procedural rather than substantial criteria for justice. This article argues that the most influential account of procedural justice in health-care rationing, presented by Daniels and Sabin, is indeterminate where concrete properties of (...) rationing institutions are concerned. Such properties inscribe substantial norms into institutions. These norms can derive validity only from democratic majority decisions, which must be seen as an instance of pure procedural justice. We therefore have to move the discussion to a meta-level and ask how concrete properties of institutions are being chosen. I suggest four criteria for sufficiently democratic institutional design choice and conclude that as institutional properties are likely to have effects on the resulting distribution of health care, design choices should be empirically informed and taken both democratically and deliberately. (shrink)

Through mystery, literature reveals to us the Great Unknown. While we are absorbed by the matters at hand with the present enactment of our life, groping for clues to handle them, it is through literature that we discover the hidden strings underlying their networks. Hence our fascination with literature. But there is more. The creative act of the human being, its proper focus, holds the key to the Sezam of life: to the great metaphysical/ontopoietic questions which literature may disclose. First, (...) it leads us to the sublimal grounds of transformation in the human soul, source of the specifically human significance of life (Analecta Husserliana, Volume III, XIX, XXIII, XXVII) Second, it leads us to the unveiling of the hidden workings of life in the twilight of knowing in a dialectic between The Visible and the Invisible, (Volume LXXV, 2002, Analecta Husserliana) down to the ontopoietic truth. (Volume LXXVI, 2002, Analecta Husserliana) This prying into the unknown which provokes the human being as he or she attempts to conquer, step by step, a space of existence, finds its culmination in the phenomenon of mystery as the subject of the present collection. Its formulation brings us to the greatest question of all: the enigmatic solidarity -in-distinctiveness of human cognition and existence. Papers are written by: Tony E. Afejuku, Gary Backhaus, Paul G. Beidler, Matthew J. Duffy, Raffaela Giovagnoli, Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Matti Itkonen, Lawrence Kimmel, Catherine Malloy, Vladimir L. Marchenkov, Nancy Mardas, Howard Pearce, Bernadette Prochaska, Victor Gerald Rivas, M.J. Sahlani, Dennis Skocz, Jadwiga S. Smith, Mara Stafecka, Max Statkiewicz, Mariola Sulkowska, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Leon U. Weinman, Tim Weiss. (shrink)

The complexity of human societies of the past few thousand years rivals that of social insect societies. We hypothesize that two sets of social “instincts” underpin and constrain the evolution of complex societies. One set is ancient and shared with other social primate species, and one is derived and unique to our lineage. The latter evolved by the late Pleistocene, and led to the evolution of institutions of intermediate complexity in acephalous societies. The (...) class='Hi'>institutions of complex societies often conflict with our social instincts. The complex societies of the last few thousand years can function only because cultural evolution has created effective “work-arounds” to manage such instincts. We describe a series of work-arounds and use the data on the relative effectiveness of WWII armies to test the work-around hypothesis. (shrink)

This paper analyses the complexity of family life, which includes both its charismatic and institutional aspects. Deepening the understanding of this basic social group can be useful in explaining how human beings in their decisions and actions, as well as organizations, unceasingly transcend different oppositions and dimensions. Undertaking this topic is not only important in the context of understanding the fundamental and complex experience of family life in the process of preparing and introducing new members to society, but also (...) from the organizational perspective. It means that exploring the role of both dimensions – charismatic and institutional – which are somehow complementary, is crucial for understanding and harmonizing the different relationships and interactions within organizations, including business ones. In this way the article shows the connection between the functioning of the family and society (including organizations within it). (shrink)

Summary: The evolution of complex societies began when agricultural subsistence systems raised human population densities to levels that would support large scale cooperation, and division of labor. All agricultural origins sequences postdate 11,500 years ago probably because late Pleistocene climates we extremely variable, dry, and the atmosphere was low in carbon dioxide. Under such conditions, agriculture was likely impossible. However, the tribal scale societies of the Pleistocene did acquire, by geneculture coevolution, tribal social instincts that simultaneously enable (...) and constrain the evolution of complex societies. Once agriculture became possible, a competitive ratchet drove further improvements in subsistence and in scale of social organization . Those societies that grew and became better organized were advantaged in individual wealth and economic and military power, and tended to conquer, absorb, or be imitated by smaller and less well organized societies. Internal competitors for power espousing useful social innovations could deliver improved returns when their quest was successful. Notwithstanding the ratchet, social complexity increased only slowly in the first half of the Holocene and even afterwards few periods except the past two centuries saw changes that were dramatic on the scale of individual lifetimes. We attempt a taxonomy of the processes that regulate rates of institutional evolution, cause reversals of complexity against the ratchet, and impose historical contingency on institutional evolution. (shrink)

Republicans have traditionally opposed democracy, arguing that rule by a majority is a form of despotic or lawless rule, and liberalism due to its emphasis on private goods over public projects and shared or public interests. Today, however, republicanism is associated with certain kinds of ‘democratic’ institutions and deliberative practices, whereas democracy is considered a means of assuring significant liberal protections for individual freedom. This chapter examines the link between republicanism and the nature of law. It describes at (...) least two separate complexes of constitutional prescriptions that can be found in republican thought: the classical complex that can be seen in various forms in Rome and Athens. It argues that modern republicans endorse institutions that are different from those advocated by their classical forbearers because they have a different understanding of society and social conflict, and traces this difference to ‘social ontology’. The chapter also contends that a republican notion of the common good depends at least in part on what is believed to be the greatest danger or threat to the republic. (shrink)

Trust is a crucial condition for the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic institutions in conditions of deep diversity and enduring injustices. Liberal democratic societies require forms of engagement and deliberation that require trustful relations between citizens: trust is a necessary condition for securing and sustaining just institutions and practices. Establishing trust is hard when there is a lingering suspicion that the institutions citizens are subject to are illegitimate or undermine their ability to participate and (...) deliberate on equal terms. The promise of participation, the appeal to deliberation and inclusion, in other words, is experienced as a form of bad faith. In this paper, I offer four conditions required for democratic trust and discuss them in relation to a series of examples of both democratic mistrust and attempts at rebuilding trust. (shrink)

"The Bush administration and Congress are in concert on the goal of developing a fleet of unmanned aircraft that can reduce both defense costs and aircrew losses in combat by taking on at least the most dangerous combat missions. Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) will be neither inexpensive enough to be readily expendable nor-- at least in early development-- capable of performing every combat mission alongside or in lieu of manned sorties. Yet the tremendous potential of such systems is widely (...) recognized, and allies as well as potential adversaries are moving quickly to mount their own research and development programs. The United States is committed to fielding UCAV capabilities by 2010, principally for the missions of suppression of enemy air defense and deep strike, which are among the highest risk tasks for the Air Force and naval aviation."--Overview. (shrink)

This is a book of applied political theory; one that attempts to span the gap between political philosophy and political science. Divided into three parts, the book focuses on several questions involving the identification, design, and implementation of those political institutions that will promote democratic values and practices and encourage the development of democratic societies.

Machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to support decision-making in the exercise of public authority. Here, we argue that an important consideration has been overlooked in previous discussions: whether the use of ML undermines the democratic legitimacy of public institutions. From the perspective of democratic legitimacy, it is not enough that ML contributes to efficiency and accuracy in the exercise of public authority, which has so far been the focus in the scholarly literature engaging with these developments. (...) According to one influential theory, exercises of administrative and judicial authority are democratically legitimate if and only if administrative and judicial decisions serve the ends of the democratic law maker, are based on reasons that align with these ends and are accessible to the public. These requirements are not satisfied by decisions determined through ML since such decisions are determined by statistical operations that are opaque in several respects. However, not all ML-based decision support systems pose the same risk, and we argue that a considered judgment on the democratic legitimacy of ML in exercises of public authority need take the complexity of the issue into account. This paper outlines considerations that help guide the assessment of whether a ML undermines democratic legitimacy when used to support public decisions. We argue that two main considerations are pertinent to such normative assessment. The first is the extent to which ML is practiced as intended and the extent to which it replaces decisions that were previously accessible and based on reasons. The second is that uses of ML in exercises of public authority should be embedded in an institutional infrastructure that secures reason giving and accessibility. (shrink)

Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as “Responsible” or “Mission-oriented” Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation–society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this “social fix” to technoscience has gained legitimacy (...) in institutions of global governance by investigating recent projects at two international organizations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Commission, to mainstream “Responsible Innovation” frameworks and instruments across countries. Our analysis shows how the turn to societal participation in both organizations relies on a new deficit logic—a democratic deficit of innovation—that frames a lack of societal engagement in innovation governance as a major barrier to the uptake and dissemination of new technologies. These deficit politics enable global governance institutions to present “Responsible Innovation” frameworks as the solution and to claim authority over the coproduction of particular forms of democracy and innovation as intertwined pillars of a market-liberal international order. (shrink)

The United States leads the world in incarceration, and the United Kingdom is persistently one of the European countries with the highest per capita rates of imprisonment. Yet despite its increasing visibility as a social issue, mass incarceration - and its inconsistency with core democratic ideals - rarely surfaces in contemporary Anglo-American political theory. Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration seeks to overcome this puzzling disconnect by deepening the dialogue between democratic theory and punishment policy. This collection of (...) original essays initiates a multi-disciplinary discussion among philosophers, political theorists, and criminologists regarding ways in which contemporary democratic theory might begin to think beyond mass incarceration. Rather than viewing punishment as a natural reaction to crime and imprisonment as a sensible outgrowth of this reaction, the volume argues that crime and punishment are institutions that reveal unmet demands for public oversight and democratic influence. Chapters explore theoretical paths towards de-carceration and alternatives to prison, suggest ways in which democratic theory can strengthen recent reform movements, and offer creative alternatives to mass incarceration. Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration offers guideposts for critical thinking about incarceration, examining ways to rebuild crime control institutions and create a healthier, more just society. (shrink)

In the twentieth century there were two great political and social paradigms, the liberal-democratic and the libertarian. The central idea of the first approach is isonomy: the exclusion of any discrimination on the basis that legal rights are afforded equally to all people. The central idea of the second approach is rather to acknowledge and address a broader spectrum of known inequalities. Such an approach, Bellanca argues, allows the pursuit of pluralism as well as a more realistic and (...) class='Hi'>complex view of what equality is. Here he analyzes the main economic and political institutions of an isocratic society, and in so doing, effectively outlines how a utopian society can be structurally and anthropologically realized. This book is ideal reading for an audience interested in the critique of contemporary capitalism through a renewed perspective of democratic socialism and leftist libertarianism. Nicolò Bellanca is Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Florence, Italy. He is the author of a broad array of scholarly articles, books and textbooks about both the history of economic thought and development economics. His current research focuses on the theory of institutional change. (shrink)

It is widely believed that just societies would be characterized by some combination of democratic political institutions and market-based economic institutions. Underlying the commitment to the combination of democracy and markets is the view that certain normatively significant outcomes in a society ought to be determined by democratic processes, while others ought to be determined by market processes. On this view, we have reason to object when market processes are employed in ways that circumvent (...) class='Hi'>democratic processes and affect outcomes that ought to be determined democratically. In this paper, I argue that Waheed Hussain’s recent account of the conditions that must be met in order for the use of market power in pursuit of social change to avoid conflict with democratic values is objectionably narrow, and offer an alternative account that avoids the problems that undermine his account without abandoning the requirement that democratic values be properly respected. The central feature of my account that makes this possible is a broader conception of democratic processes that includes public deliberation and debate aimed at shaping informal social norms and practices. (shrink)

This paper argues for Serious Distributive Egalitarianism – the view that some material inequalities are seriously objectionable as such; not merely, say, because such inequalities tend to generate inequalities in status. Social justice requires equality, I argue, because basic social institutions produce important goods and are produced in turn by the relevantly equal contributions of all those that comply with them. E.g., basic social institutions make it much easier to produce cooperatively than it would be in their absence; (...) therefore, these institutions produce, among other things, opportunities to participate in particular productive enterprises. But basic social institutions are themselves produced, in large part, by the compliance of those subject to them; these subjects, therefore, contribute to the production of the goods that basic institutions produce. This gives (at least) every compliant subject of basic social institutions a claim on these goods. And, I argue that, though some do contribute more to the maintenance of basic institutions than others, those who contribute more are too responsible for the fact that others contribute less to point to the consequences of this difference as a reason they should get greater returns. I conclude that all subjects of basic social institutions have equally forceful and forcefully equal claims on the goods these institutions produce; claims that render inequalities in the Distribution of these goods Seriously objectionable as such. (shrink)

Technology regulation is one of the most important public policy issues facing society and governments at the present time, and further clarity could improve decision making in this complex and challenging area. Since the rise of the internet in the late 1990s, a number of approaches to technology regulation have been proposed, prompted by the associated changes in society, business and law that this development brought with it. However, over the past decade, the impact of technology has been profound (...) and the associated issues for government have extremely challenging, ranging across cyber security, artificial intelligence, and many other areas. To that end, this article introduces a Theory of Institutional Technology Actors and Norms (TITAN), a normatively informed and institutionally-based account of technology regulation. It focuses on the moral and legal (including regulatory) rights and responsibilities of the relevant actors and seeks to inform the development of regulation that is both fit for purpose, rights compliant and fair for all concerned. The account incorporates the perspectives of four key categories of groups in society: producers of technology, users of technology, government regulators, and normative policy shapers. (shrink)

The article examines and analyzes the state structures of Soviet Ukraine in the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century, which were responsible for the organization, support and control in the field of culture and science of the country. In line with the postmodern transformations of this chronological segment, the system of state structures and their influence on the activities of semi-independent scientific organizations have been reconstructed. In view of postmodernism as a philosophical current, the nonviolent resistance of the scientific (...) intelligentsia to proletarian culture, forced by the Soviet nomenklatura with a mass, uncompromising character, is revealed. The political processes around state structures and scientific organizations are reproduced in historical retrospect. The activity of scientific organizations of the above historical period is investigated and an attempt is made to reproduce their organizational and social network. The article proves that the evolution of modern society is due to the complex influence of a set of important trends and factors that determine the progressive development of its economic, political, social and spiritual spheres. The relevance of the study is due to modern transformation processes in a post-communist society focused on democratic, liberal European values. With the spread and development of liberal views in Ukrainian society, we are increasingly seeing the emergence of private scientific institutions, which are the prototypes of scientific organizations of the previous century. As a result, their internal activities and connections with other organizations are of great interest today, not only among scientists, but also among business representatives. This necessitates a more in-depth development of this problem, taking into account the evolution of the theory and practice of social and public administration of various forms of ownership of organizations and enterprises. (shrink)

Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly’s focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of (...) inequality through the kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly’s theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations. (shrink)

Drawing on theories of institutional evolution, this article contends that despite the centrality of occupationally based social insurance in postwar Korea and Taiwan, the welfare state has in fact deepened considerably. The analysis is structured around three distinct eras of social policy reform in Korea and Taiwan: the developmental state, democratic transition, and postindustrialism. The authors contend that during each of these eras, the institutional purposes of social policy were altered to meet certain socioeconomic objectives. New institutional purposes were (...) grafted onto the prevailing social insurance model, changing the outcomes of social policy. The developmental state era was productivist in purpose, democratic reform during the 1980s reoriented social insurance toward universalist and redistributive principles, and the post-1997 era refocused social insurance to meet the imperatives of flexible labor markets, demographic shifts, and economic globalization. (shrink)

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

This book offers a unique analysis of the tension between the individual and society in educational contexts, and the role that citizenship and democratic education can play. It approaches the question from two different perspectives - the institutional and the interactional - and argues that any solution must answer the tension from both or it will necessarily fail. The answer is found through a political methodology that places education at the centre and concludes that a balance can be found (...) if we embrace the federated disestablishment of education and state and internally democratic schooling that aims to realise the emancipation of the political child. The book situates itself in the tradition of political philosophy that is education focused, identifying an unresolved tension between the individual and society in the works of Rousseau, Dewey, and Freire. It discusses the concept of authority as a primary issue persisting in this tension. It does so by exploring both interactional and institutional responses based on the idea of the free individual and cooperative associations. The author advocates an education system that creates the necessary space for the cultivation of the free individual and is run by the principles of internally democratic schooling. With a strong focus on citizenship and the role of education in the development of social-justice oriented citizens, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, political philosophy, educational theory, and citizenship education. (shrink)

In this essay I defend an institutional approach to democratic legitimacy against proceduralist approaches that are commonly endorsed by deliberative democrats. Although deliberative democrats defend a complex view of democratic legitimacy that aims to account for both the procedural and substantive dimensions of legitimacy, most accounts of the relationship between these dimensions currently on offer are too proceduralist to be plausible (I). By contrast, I argue that adopting an institutional approach helps provide a more convincing account of (...) the interplay between procedural and substantive aspects of democratic legitimacy which in turn illuminates the intricate relationship between public deliberation and decision-making procedures such as voting (II). This account also enables us to see what is wrong with interpreting the legitimacy of majoritarian and non-majoritarian institutions in terms of an alleged conflict between popular sovereignty and rights protections. In opposition to this view, I argue that the proper standard for judging the democratic legitimacy of both majoritarian and non-majoritarian institutions is whether they enable an ongoing recursive process of deliberative contestation or whether they generate antidemocratic shortcuts instead (III). (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article provides a criticism of the apolitical starting point of social contract theories through the analysis of Rawls's original position and Habermas's idea of complex society, arguing that such depoliticized starting point leads to the refusal of the centrality of social struggles between classes as the basis of streamlining social evolution and institutional constitution. In order to achieve political agreement, it erases and even eliminates the struggles between social classes, the status quo and the social-political differences between (...) social groups as the core of societal and institutional configuration. Moreover, it leads to strong institutionalism-the centrality of the formal spheres and subjects in relation to informal spheres and subjects. Therefore, the political consequences of a depoliticized or apolitical starting point are threefold: the depoliticization of social struggles between opposed social classes, the strong institutionalism by the emphasis in the depoliticized institutions and in the rule of law, and the weakening of a democratic political praxis performed by social movements and citizen initiatives from a direct contraposition and even substitution of the institutions, their proceduralism and legal staff with the spontaneous politicalcultural praxis of these social movements and citizen initiatives. The great problem and challenge of contemporary democratic societies, namely the correlation between strong institutionalism, political parties and economic oligarchies, cannot be resolved from the juridical-political procedural paradigm's emphasis on institutionalism and the rule of law, but only by a reaffirmation of political praxis as the fundamental core of institutional and societal constitution, legitimation and evolution, which implies that democratic politics must be conceived of as a permanent struggle against strong institutionalism by the political subjects of civil society. Here a permanent and radical politicization of the informal public spheres and subjects is required. RESUMO Critico no artigo, a partir da análise da posição original de Rawls e da ideia de sociedade complexa de Habermas, o ponto de partida não político das teorias do contrato social, argumentando que este mesmo ponto de partida despolitizado leva - no momento em que apaga e mesmo elimina, com o objetivo de alcançar o acordo político, as lutas sociais entre classes, o status quo e as diferenças sociopolíticas entre os grupos sociais como a base da configuração institucional e societal - à recusa da centralidade das lutas sociais entre classes como a base de dinamização da evolução social e da constituição institucional. Ele leva, além disso, ao institucionalismo forte, isto é, à centralidade das esferas e dos sujeitos formais em relação às esferas e sujeitos informais. Portanto, as consequências políticas de um ponto de partida não político ou despolitizado são triplas: a despolitização das lutas sociais entre classes sociais opostas; o institucionalismo forte por meio da ênfase em instituições políticas e no Estado democrático de direito despolitizados; e o enfraquecimento de uma práxis política radical que é realizada por movimentos sociais e iniciativas cidadãs a partir de uma contraposição direta e mesmo de uma substituição das instituições, de seu procedimentalismo e elites pela práxis político-cultural espontânea dos movimentos sociais e das iniciativas cidadãs. O grande problema e o grande desafio das sociedades democráticas contemporâneas, ou seja, a correlação entre institucionalismo forte, partidos políticos e oligarquias econômicas, não podem ser resolvidos por meio da ênfase, por parte do paradigma jurídico-político procedimentalista, no institucionalismo e no Estado Democrático de Direito, senão que apenas por meio de uma reafirmação da práxis política como o verdadeiro núcleo da constituição, legitimação e evolução institucional e societal, o que implica que a política democrática seja concebida como luta permanente em relação ao institucionalismo forte por parte dos sujeitos políticos advenientes da sociedade civil, exigindo-se, aqui, uma politização permanente e radical das esferas públicas e dos sujeitos informais. (shrink)

The article considers the leading and indisputable role of discursive practices in the existence of social institutions, especially in democratic governance. The necessity of searching for heuristi- cally effective approaches in the analysis of social reality in general, and especially modern soci- ality, is substantiated. In this context, the theoretical modernization of the institutional approach in the analysis of social phenomena by involving the concept of discourse in the structure of this approach is proposed. Emphasis is placed on (...) the dual meaning of social institutions — as ways of organizing the life of society and as instances (mediums) of normative, through which the order of social life is constituted, reproduced, and changed. This solves the “rule-organization” dilem- ma in neo-institutionalism. It is transferred to the mode of two inseparable and complementary functions of the institute — normative and regulative. The analysis of those semantic, organiza- tional, and procedural loadings which carry out discursive practices inactivity of institutes of society is given. In particular, emphasis is placed on the complex structure of normativity em- bodied by the public institution. It should at least highlight the explicit normativity of the system of rules and regulations on the one hand, and the order of discourse created and maintained by this institution, on the other. Discourse corresponds to the normativity in its usability — as a real process of normalization of life. Normativity exists only by generating certain practices of speech, communication, and argumentation (conclusion). This becomes the basis for distin- guishing the concept of an institution as a discursive mode of existence of a social institution on the one hand, and as a way of organizing discourse in society (order of discourse) — on the other. Among the main social effects of institutions are the generation of trust as the basis of social relations and the longevity of cultural experience. Emphasis is placed on the complexity of the existence and activities of institutions: each institution is involved in the general discursive-com- municative field of society, and in turn, influences it. (shrink)

This book is a collection of papers presented at an interdisciplinary workshop at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in May 1980. The three broad issues covered are: the physician-patient relationship, the allocation of responsibility among doctors and nurses, and the political and social framework of the health care system. The first set of essays is concerned with the moral and legal aspects of the physician-patient relationship. The link between knowledge and power is examined as well as the moral dilemmas (...) posed by medical technology. These initial essays would alone justify this publ. (shrink)

Political philosophy has difficulties to cope with the complexity and variety of state-religions relations. ‘Strict separationism’ is still the preferred option amongst liberals, deliberative and republican democrats, socialist and feminists. In this article, I develop a complex typology based on comparative history and sociology of religions. I summarize my reasons why institutional pluralist models like plural establishment or non-constitutional pluralism are attractive not only for religious minorities but for religiously deeply diverse societies in general. Most attention is paid (...) defending associative democracy, the most flexible and open variety of institutional pluralism, against realist objections that group representation is incompatible with liberal democracy, that it leads to stigmatization and bureaucratization, that it strengthens undemocratic leaders, that it leads to an ossification of the status quo, and, most importantly, that it is inherently divisive undermining social cohesion and political unity. In my refutation of these objections I try to show that it helps to integrate minority religions into liberal democratic policies compatible with reasonable pluralism and to prevent religious and political fundamentalism. (shrink)

This article examines the link between oligarchy and the notion of representative democracy, which for Castoriadis also implies the bureaucratisation of society. However, in an argument with and against Castoriadis, one has to decipher modern oligarchies before launching into a radical critique of the principle of representation. There is a diversity of representative democracies, and the complexity of modernity comes from a mixture of oligarchy, representation and democracy. Even though the idea of democracy has evolved, we do not live under (...) representative democracies but under liberal oligarchies. Direct democratic procedures and representative elements can sometimes be gathered in order to create new forms of political commitment. The main problem is avoiding a concentration of powers, which cannot create the conditions for the emergence of democratic institutions. (shrink)

An argument is presented for a form of democracy in which both identity groups and secondary associations might receive some political recognition. The aim of this approach is to ward against both the atomism of mass democracy and the divisiveness of highly politicized and insular identity groups on the other. This approach relies on achieving social integration, not by increasing unity or homogenization, but by increasing the complexity of group membership. This approach differs from both the “politics of difference” which (...) seeks recognition for identity groups and from “associational democracy” approaches which seeks recognition for the voluntary associations of civil society. (shrink)

Political philosophy has difficulties to cope with the complexity and variety of state-religions relations. ‘Strict separationism’ is still the preferred option amongst liberals, deliberative and republican democrats, socialist and feminists. In this article, I develop a complex typology based on comparative history and sociology of religions. I summarize my reasons why institutional pluralist models like plural establishment or non-constitutional pluralism are attractive not only for religious minorities but for religiously deeply diverse societies in general. Most attention is paid (...) defending associative democracy, the most flexible and open variety of institutional pluralism, against realist objections that group representation is incompatible with liberal democracy, that it leads to stigmatization and bureaucratization, that it strengthens undemocratic leaders, that it leads to an ossification of the status quo, and, most importantly, that it is inherently divisive undermining social cohesion and political unity. In my refutation of these objections I try to show that it helps to integrate minority religions into liberal democratic policies compatible with reasonable pluralism and to prevent religious and political fundamentalism. (shrink)

In this paper I intend to analyze the possibility of social justice as fair maximal utility starting from two different perspectives about justice – justice as fairness and justice as social choice or mutual advantage. The thesis I defend and reconstruct here is that a co-operative solution can be implemented only in a democratic society where a certain kind of justice principles is applied. This solution, however, is not a solution, if we do not really understand the principles which (...) are being involved in it or if we do not use a proper concept of justice. My proposal here could bring some light both upon this issue and on the logical clarification. In order to realize this, I take into account at least two problems: 1) the problem of compatibility between the announced concept and the existence of social inequalities; 2) Nozick’s objection concerning the compensation of inequalities involved by this kind of justice. I intend to analyze Rawls’ solution of compensatory beneficial in order to test whether it could be considered dangerous for the preservation of equidistance of the rules and, hence, for the justice as impartiality, as Nozick claims in his work Anarchy, State and Utopia, the concept of reasonability which is used here as being complementary to the concept of rationality and useful for this matter. (shrink)

Holding unlimited economic freedom to be nearly as dangerous as physical violence, Karl Popper advocated “piecemeanl” economic intervention by the state. Jeremy Shearmur's recent book on Popper contends that as the philosopher aged, his views grew closer to classical liberalism than those expressed in The Open Society—consistently with what Shearmur sees as the logic of Popper's arguments. But Popper's philosophy, while recognizing that any project aimed at bringing about social change must be immensely complex and fraught with difficulty, retains (...) grounds for hope about the purposeful use of government to bring about desirable social results. (shrink)

Terence Mclaughlin’s essay addresses the conceptual and practical complexities involved in identifying and evaluating the nature, status, and institutional context of common education in pluralist societies. He explores some of the neglected burdens and dilemmas faced by common schools in pluralist, multicultural, and liberal–democratic societies. The potential weight and complexity of these burdens and dilemmas is reflected in Stephen Macedo’s observation that common schools give rise to questions relating to some of the ‘deepest divisions’ and ‘most intractable (...) conflicts’ characterizing the public lives of modern states. The chapter has five sections: Section 5.1 outlines some general considerations relating to common schooling and a conception of common education, pointing out that the relationship between the two is a contingent one – the adequacy of a particular institutional arrangement, such as the common school, depends critically on the extent to which it embodies an adequate conception of common education; Section 5.2 offers a sketch of some general features of such conceptions; in Sections 5.3 and 5.4, respectively, some of the burdens and dilemmas of common schooling are explored; Section 5.5 addresses neglected questions relating to the pre-eminently practical burdens and dilemmas highlighted in the previous two sections. McLaughlin’s chapter is especially helpful in identifying a number of the most important considerations in the presumption in favour of common schools as the most suitable arrangement for advancing common education, and his essay maps the conceptual, curricular, pedagogical, and policy issues that must be addressed in clarifying and defending the role of common schools and common education in liberal–democratic societies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Search of a Reality-Based Community:Illusion and Tolerance in Music, Education, and SocietyPatrick K. SchmidtThe two questions that arise in this symposium are: What kind of world engagement is required of music education? and Should music educators participate in political understanding? While my immediate response was and is: How we can afford not to? that is, not to engage fully with the world and not to do so politically, (...) at the same time I also recognize the ways in which that has been problematic in the music education profession. Particularly, in how we continue to experience what I would call events without future: ersatz events made of illusions. Such a proposition is implicated in the following questions: How seriously are we committed to rethinking our practice and re-engaging with our ideals, traditions, visions, and discourses? Has our conception and practice of democracy disappeared (or remained unformed) in the insubstantiality of shadows? How do [End Page 160] we react to political understandings that dismiss the communities in which we live, as well as the singularities and differences that mark us? Who are those of us supposedly living in the/a "reality-based community?"1An aide of the current administration explains the White House stance by saying, "We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."2 The idea, of course, is that we not only can, but perhaps, must dissociate from such communities (particularly those that do not conform to such envisioned reality). An Empire, one might say, seeks power as well as expansion, confluence as well as stability, tradition as well as ideological certainty. It probably comes as no surprise then, that dictatorial regimes are often more stable, including economically, than new or recalcitrant democracies. (I myself grew up in such a regime in Brazil in the 1970s and early 80s.) The word "Empire" conjures up images that are localized, monocentric, confluent, and institutional. The reality today, however, seems much closer to what Antonio Negri and Richard Hardt portray:3 a reality modeled upon the production of subjects with increasingly similar desires and prone to a certain subservience to commodity and technology. But if this "we" is no longer "us" but an illusion, if this reality-based community no longer distinguishes, questions, problematizes, or engages with its own reality or realities, perhaps more than ever it is time that we began to think politically, that our assumptions and that of others be challenged, and that we seek understandings that, as Randall Allsup has proposed, "are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion."Following the model adopted here I will address some of the concepts Estelle Jorgensen proposes, particularly those associated with the notion of supremacy and its propagation through "reductionistic and nationalistic forces." Such a vista will serve as a departing point for my own reflections on the shades, contradictions, complexities, and possibilities we might find when considering majority led silence and voicing, as well as the role of political and empathetic dialogue in our practices, be they professional and/or connected to citizenship.4A Search for the Ethical: Majority Rule?Today, music education as a society negotiates a reality that is more complex and multiple—one of a multitude of one5 —of separation through categories that, while preserving the impression of distinctiveness, allows for a larger invisible and uncontested majority to instill what Alexis de Toqueville called over a century ago the "tyranny of the majority."6 We need to consider here that, as Negri and Hardt propose, there is no one center to this Empire, "no tangible, nuclear element to be identified and/or resisted." This tyrannical majority is paradoxical, for while it dictates it is also silent.7 What is there, then, are spaces in and through which our disengagement allows for the strengthening of what is [End Page 161] perceived and experienced as inevitable, as a faceless majority that controls and decrees, that denies and structures.This tyranny of the majority, the underside of our democratic visions, can lead in politics, as in our professional practices, to a sense of the famous Foucaultian panopticon where total surveillance is... (shrink)

Norms, Values, and Society is the second Yearbook of the Vienna Circle Institute, which was founded in October 1991. The main part of the book contains original contributions to an international symposium the Institute held in October 1993 on ethics and social philosophy. The papers deal among others with questions of justice, equality, just social institutions, human rights, the connections between rationality and morality and the methodological problems of applied ethics. The Documentation section contains previously unpublished papers by Rudolf (...) Carnap, Philipp Frank, Charles W. Morris and Edgar Zilsel, and the review section presents new publications on the Vienna Circle. The Vienna Circle Institute is devoted to the critical advancement of science and philosophy in the broad tradition of the Vienna Circle, as well as to the focusing of cross-disciplinary interest on the history and philosophy of science in a social context. The Institute's Yearbooks will, for the most part, document its activities and provide a forum for the discussion of exact philosophy, logical and empirical investigations, and analysis of language. (shrink)

Bioethical and bio‐political questions are increasingly tackled by committees, councils, and other advisory boards that work on different and often interrelated levels. Research ethics committees work on an institutional or clinical level; local advisory boards deal with biomedical topics on the level of particular political regions; national and international political advisory boards try to answer questions about morally problematic political decisions in medical research and practice. In accordance with the increasing number and importance of committees, the quality of their work (...) and their functional status are being subjected to more and more scrutiny. Besides overall criticism regarding the quality of their work, particular committees giving political advice are often suspected of being incompatible with democratic values, such as respect for affected parties, representation of diverse values and transparency in the decision‐making processes. Based on the example of the German National Ethics Council, whose inauguration caused a still ongoing debate on the aims and scopes of committees in general, this paper discusses: (1) the requirements of modern democratic societies in dealing with complex scientific‐technical problems; (2) the composition and organisation of committees working as political advisory boards; and (3) the appointment procedures and roles of laymen and experts, and here in particular of ethicists, who may legitimately be taken on by a committee. I will argue that bioethics committees do not necessarily endanger democratic values, but can considerably improve their realisation in democratic decision‐making procedures – if, and only if, they do not act as substitutes for parliamentarian processes, but help prepare parliamentarian processes to be organised as rationally as possible. (shrink)

Sociologists have long studied the ways people resist oppression but have devoted far less empirical attention to the ways people resign to it. As a result, researchers have neglected the mechanisms of resignation and how people narrate their lived experiences. Drawing on 81 interviews with parents with past child protective services cases, this article provides an empirical account of resignation in an institutional setting, documenting how parents understand relinquishing their rights as a process of personalization, calculation, or socialization. Phenomenologically, parents (...) typically confronted multiple barriers and setbacks simultaneously, the combined weight of which pressured them to “give up,” interpreting structural and institutional pressures as individual choice. This article accordingly identifies resignation as a crucial feature of democratic governance. (shrink)

In his early lectures, published as On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, Nietzsche attempts to expose contemporary education as overly extensive and being weakened, and as such, failing to turn pupils and students into men of culture. The aim of my paper is to present a comprehensive consideration of the present condition of democratic educational institutions through Nietzsche's clairvoyantly pessimistic assessment. I enter the discussion through two Nietzschean concepts, levelling and misarchism, which, although not found in (...) the mentioned text explicitly, resonate throughout Nietzsche's 1872 lectures and were to become increasingly important with each subsequent publication. Regardless of the common trend in the so-called Nietzsche studies to analytically strive for and determine the true or the correct interpretation of his works, ideas and concepts, my paper presupposes the inevitable evasiveness of his philosophy, and focuses rather on the very insight of his that can be of great use in seeking answers to the crucial question of the present democratic society: what can be expected of our educational institutions? (shrink)

In his early lectures, published as On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, Nietzsche attempts to expose contemporary education as overly extensive and being weakened, and as such, failing to turn pupils and students into men of culture. The aim of my paper is to present a comprehensive consideration of the present condition of democratic educational institutions through Nietzsche's clairvoyantly pessimistic assessment. I enter the discussion through two Nietzschean concepts, levelling and misarchism, which, although not found in (...) the mentioned text explicitly, resonate throughout Nietzsche's 1872 lectures and were to become increasingly important with each subsequent publication. Regardless of the common trend in the so-called Nietzsche studies to analytically strive for and determine the true or the correct interpretation of his works, ideas and concepts, my paper presupposes the inevitable evasiveness of his philosophy, and focuses rather on the very insight of his that can be of great use in seeking answers to the crucial question of the present democratic society: what can be expected of our educational institutions? (shrink)