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

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (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)

Normative theories of law conceive the courtroom as a geometrically delineated, politically neutral, and linguistically transparent space designed for a fair and orderly administration of justice. The trial, the most legalistic of all legal acts, is widely regarded as a site of truth and justice elevated above and beyond the expediency of ideology and politics. These conceptions are further underpinned by certain normative understandings of sovereignty, the subject, and politics where sovereignty is conceived as self-instituting and self-limiting; the (...) subject is understood as an autonomous and rational being capable of self-consciousness and self-representation; and politics is posited as the exercise of reason in the public sphere. In this article, I argue that such a normative conceptualization of the criminal trial and the courtroom not only ignores structures of power and privilege that produce inequalities but also forecloses possibilities for transformative judicial praxis. Drawing on the 1969–1970 trial of eight radical activists accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the article argues for a performative re-conceptualization of sovereignty, the subject, and the law as indeterminate, unpredictable, and open-ended discursive formations. The article demonstrates how the accused, working with and against legal doctrines, norms, and discourses, rethought normative conceptions of sovereignty, law, and subjectivity as contingent power-knowledge constellations that are open, unpredictable, and un-closable. (shrink)

The only complete study of Buber as a political thinker. Shed new light upon Buber's I Thou, while also attempting to understand Buber's Zionist thought and activity in a new and fresh manner.

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)

This book examines doping in Germany, with primary attention given to West Germany, from 1950 to the present, including what societal, cultural, and institutional pressures arose after WWII to bring about such prevalence of doping in the country.

The act of iudicare hostes (‘declare public enemy’) was a formal pronouncement of the Roman Senate, voted for the first time in 88 BCE following a proposal by L. Cornelius Sulla after his first march on Rome. Legal historians have generally interpreted it as an emergency measure intended to preserve legality in a situation of civil strife and viewed it as a consistently defined institutional framework throughout the final decades of the Republic. Through an analysis of Sulla’s performative political communication, (...) before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the march, this paper argues that the act of judging (iudicare) someone a public enemy (hostis publicus) was first deployed as a political action, void of legal effects. Later instances of iudicare suggest that this act underwent a process of institutionalization after 63 BCE. (shrink)

This article explores Lyotard’s notion of performativity through an engagement with McKenzie’s analysis of performance as a ‘formation of knowledge and power’ that has displaced the notion of discipline as the tool for social evaluation. Through conditions of ‘performance’ capitalism, education is to conform to a logic of performativity that ensures not only the efficient operation of the state in the world market, but also the continuation of a global culture of performance. I further trace Lyotard’s postmodern (...) aesthetic of experimentation through performance as an ‘event’ in an analogous attempt to track the process of cultural production in terms that acknowledge the temporality of the event so as not to reduce the artwork to a commodity, knowledge to information, and ‘performance’ to be managed. Where this has critical traction is in education, a site that deals with the intersection of politics, art, theory, philosophy and history—in short, a site where all aspects of ‘performance’ are fully realized. This article engages with the key ideas of these thinkers’ approaches to notions of performance, and assesses their relevance for an understanding of the ambiguities of ‘performance’ in contemporary education institutions. (shrink)

Usually, during any form of communication in an institutional classroom and beyond, the phenomenon of “silence” is regarded as a form of epistemological and ontological absence. To elaborate further, the act of remaining silent is usually equated with incapability and nothingness. The authenticity and relevance of building and sharing knowledge with one another are mostly judged on the basis of one’s capability to verbally express. But silence as a form of communication and knowledge dissemination has been an integral part of (...) several native indigenous communities across the planet. It was with the emergence of European colonization, that such silent systems of knowledge production were disbanded as mysterious and invalid. The exercise of disbanding the phenomenon of silence continues to take place through the colonial/modern vocal-centric pedagogical practices in the contemporary era. With respect to these arguments, this essay attempts to explore the possible ways through which silence, along with vocal pedagogical practices, can be performed in an intersectional manner as a habitual pedagogical practice in educational institutions today. To justify the possibilities contextually, the author shares pedagogical instances mostly from India. This essay is the third part of the three-part pedagogy series. The other two essays are “Pedagogy of the Stupid” and “Pedagogy of Common Sense.”. (shrink)

We provide evidence of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) in Palestine, a highly unstable political context. Annual reports of all firms listed on the Palestine Exchange (PEX) for the period 2016-2019 were manually content analysed. A checklist of reported CSR items is summarised into four areas: environmental information, human resources, community involvement, and product and customer service quality. Results indicate a robust positive connection between each of the four dimensions and the composite (...) CSR index with three performance indicators: ROA, ROE, and Tobins Q. Results also find better performing companies with a higher degree of community involvement being greatly appealing, while the environmental dimension was the least resilient. We discuss the significance of community engagement for an unstable context like Palestine from a community cohesion standpoint. (shrink)

This dissertation defends the place of representation in music. Music’s status as a representational art has been hotly debated since the War of the Romantics, which pitted the Weimar progressives (Liszt, Wagner, &co.) against the Leipzig conservatives (the Schumanns, Brahms, &co.) in an intellectual struggle for what each side took to be the very future of music as an art. I side with the progressives, and argue that music can be and often is a representational medium. Correspondence (or resemblance) theories (...) of representation, such as the one I offer, have been much maligned in philosophy since the 1960s. Most theories assimilate representation under “meaning,” which has usually been thought to belong primarily to language. As a result, representational content has been taken to be purely conventional in the way that sentential meaning is. People want to know what music “means,” and these theories interpret this as “what does it refer to?” or “what propositions does it express?” I argue that propositional communication is only one (small) part of the issue. Once we overcome the bias of conceiving of musical works as essentially linguistic items, speech acts (performed) or sentence tokens (written), we can begin to take music on its own terms to discover how it represents—one way in which it “means.” The first step is to “naturalize” music’s representational content. Influenced by recent discussions in the philosophies of mind and science, I argue in Chapter 1 that composers represent extra-musical objects, events, and states of affairs through their works by exploiting antecedent relations (such as similarities in pitch, timbre, and structure) in order to secure reference to them. In Chapter 2, I survey and respond to the main challenges that those skeptical of music’s representational possibilities would raise against my theory of musical representation. In Chapter 3, I explore a number of ways through which music has been claimed to represent in order to show how my theory accounts for these diverse phenomena better than its conventionalist rivals, both in terms of the metaphysics and the epistemology. Chapter 4 extends this discussion by offering an account of how we perceive, understand, appreciate, and interpret sophisticated musical representations. I conclude by teasing out some of my theory’s implications and suggesting areas for further research. (shrink)

While the importance of social and political trust has been well documented, there is a lack of scholarly consensus over where trust originates. This article tests three theoretical arguments – social-psychological, social-cultural, and political institutional – on the origin of political trust against three East Asian democracies. The empirical analysis from the AsiaBarometer survey illustrates that political institutional theory best explains the origin of political trust in East Asian cases. Citizens of these East Asian democracies have a high level of (...) political trust when they believe that their governments perform well in management of the national economy and political representation of elected officials. Meanwhile, social-psychological and social-cultural theories explain the origins of social trust, but not political trust. The evidence reveals that socially trusting people are not automatically politically trusting; social trust and political trust originate from different sources and do not transform from one to the other.Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

The relationship between firm financial performance and sustainability reporting (SR) has been extensively researched previously, but with inconsistent results. By incorporating the coercive isomorphism of the institutional theory, this study examines if the relationship is moderated by the ownership of institutional investors. Using data from a sample of 270 Malaysian public listed firms, the study tested two ordinary least square (OLS) regression models. The results show that firm performance and institutional ownership have a positive link to SR. Further (...) examination however discloses a negative moderation of institutional ownership on the relationship between firm performance and SR, thus fail to support the indication that institutional investors coerce the investee firms to utilise their firm performance for sustainability activities. This study adds to SR-related literature by providing reliable and objective findings and directions for future studies in this context. (shrink)

After an introduction and views on inculturation, the focus shifts to ‘incarnation’ and ‘contextualisation’ in a broader sense, to also include the transformation and adaptation of the ‘sacred’ for the secular or political sphere. Practices of performing faith through texts and music within diverse liturgical, spiritual, cultural and political contexts in South Africa are discussed. Aspects taken into account are the possible influence of landscape or seasons on the expression of faith and the possible sacro-soundscapes that could come from different (...) contexts, such as the impact of the Karoo landscape on Khoisan descendants singing the sacred; performances in a contextualised music idiom, such as the Genevan Psalms in a Khoi music idiom; and celebrating the Church Year in different hemispheres. The discussion focuses also on contextualising within political contexts – that is, where political space is ‘sacralised’ through sacred songs and where sacred songs are given political meaning or changed for the political sphere. The article closes with the possibility of songs from Africa being sung in other countries and the meaning it could have, or could be given. It is argued that contextualisation from one context to another context of the sacred, or from a ‘secular’ to a sacred context, as well contextualising the sacred into the public or political sphere, could lead to contexts and spaces being changed, enrich the performance of the sacred, stimulate creativity, allow for new processes of attributing meaning, change values and motivate people, form new identities and thus also could lead to changed communities. (shrink)

In March 1986, a public symposium took place in Heidelberg about the “unresolved potential dangers of genetic engineering”. The event was organized by institutions affiliated with the environmental movement. Choosing this symposium as an example, the article shows how the public appearance of scientists can be understood as a form of political activism. The article shows how specialists from fields as diverse as biology, chemistry, physics, law and political sciences tried to place political messages by putting themselves in the limelight (...) as independent scientists. I argue that the symposium was both: a place of science communication intertwined with political agitation that, as should be noted, happened in a time when the West German government was working on the legislation of genetic engineering, legitimated by relying on independent expertise. It can be concluded that the discourse of scientific independence became a strategic tool in the controversial debate about the uses and dangers of genetic engineering. Thus, it draws attention to a dimension of political-scientific activity which cannot be fully grasped by the concept of ‘the expert’ that is established in the history of science. (shrink)

Christian physicians are in danger of losing the right of conscientious objection in situations they deem immoral. The erosion of this right is bolstered by the doctrine of "physician value neutrality" (PVN) which may be an impetus for the push to require physicians to refer for procedures they find immoral. It is only a small step from referral to compelling performance of these same procedures. If no one particular value is more morally correct than any other (a foundational PVN (...) premise) and a physician ought to be value neutral, than conscientious objection to morally objectionable actions becomes a thing of the past. However, the argument for PVN fails. Therefore, Christian physicians should state their values openly, which would allow patients the ability to choose like-minded physicians. Some possible responses to this erosion of conscientious objection include, disengagement from non-Christian institutions, the formation of distinctly Christian medical institutions and political action. However, for the Christian the initial focus should be on a life of holiness which requires each of us to avoid evil. (shrink)

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions? In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality (...) and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness. In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them. Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis. A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, _Freedom and Neurobiology_ is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions? In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality (...) and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness. In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them. Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis. A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, _Freedom and Neurobiology_ is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions’ emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political outcomes should begin from an analysis of cognitive processes. We explore the nature of individual and collective learning, stressing that the issue is not whether agents are perfectly or boundedly rational, but rather how human beings actually reason (...) and choose, individually and in collective settings. We then tie the processes of learning to institutional analysis, providing arguments in favor of what can be characterized as “cognitive institutionalism.” Besides, we show that a full treatment of the phenomenon of path dependence should start at the cognitive level, proceed at the institutional level, and culminate at the economic level. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Legitimacy, Performance, and Political Realism:Response to Ben CrossJiwei Ci (bio)Ben Cross raises important issues in his article and provides a much appreciated occasion for me to join the discussion. He targets his trenchant critique at what he calls Weberian sources of legitimacy, treating my view as a distinctive variation on the Weberian account. I am not sure that the issues on which we differ are most economically framed (...) by drawing Weber so prominently into the debate. Since Cross has already framed the issues in this way, however, I think I can best contribute to the exchange by accepting his terms of reference wherever appropriate and trying to work as fruitfully as possible within them. I will respectfully not take up any of the issues raised in the fourth section of the article, because Cross's use of the notion of civic agency there is so far removed from mine as to leave little room for productive engagement.As Cross notes, Weber identifies three distinct sources of legitimacy (or three types of authority): legality, the traditional, and the charismatic. This, however, is only a typology of specific sources and an incomplete one at that, for it does not cover the two sources that I happen to find most relevant in Democracy in China.1 The teleological legitimacy much discussed in chapter 1 of my book does not come under any of Weber's ideal types and seems to constitute another, distinct ideal type. Nor is the democratic legitimacy based on popular sovereignty that is proposed in chapter 3 as an alternative to teleological legitimacy quite the same as legal authority. It is thus easy to see that—and why—I do not avail myself of what Cross calls the Weberian sources of legitimacy. As a matter of fact, I do not [End Page 149] regard Weber's tripartite classification, regardless of whether it is exhaustive, as the conceptual core of his idea of legitimacy.Cross moves closer to that core when he notes the difference between the type of motive (i.e., non-expedient) that the three Weberian sources of legitimacy are supposed to have in common and the motive of pure expediency. This difference is important because, as Weber puts it in a well-known statement quoted by Cross, "Purely material interests and calculations of advantages as the basis of solidarity between the chief and his administrative staff result, in this as in other connexions, in a relatively unstable situation." Based on Weber's concern with the lack of stability characteristic of relations of pure expediency, Cross is then able to speak of a "Weber-inspired rejection of performance legitimacy." This conclusion, if not exactly mistaken, is nevertheless reached without adequately bringing out the issues involved.Take a close look at the passage in Economy and Society from which the above quote is taken:Purely material interests and calculations of advantages as the basis of solidarity between the chief and his administrative staff result, in this as in other connexions, in a relatively unstable situation. Normally other elements, affectual and ideal, supplement such interests. In certain exceptional cases the former alone may be decisive. In everyday life these relationships, like others, are governed by custom and material calculation of advantage. But custom, personal advantage, and purely affectual or ideal motives of solidarity do not form a sufficiently reliable basis for a given domination. In addition there is normally a further element, the belief in legitimacy.2Here it becomes clear that Weber, even in emphasizing the indispensable role of belief in legitimacy, argues his case much more cautiously and subtly than Cross gives one to understand. To begin with we see Weber take the trouble to stress "purely." We then find three qualifications in a row before Weber allows himself to conclude, as an empirical observation, that "custom, personal advantage, purely affectual or ideal motives of solidarity, do not form a sufficiently reliable basis for a given domination," from which he is apparently compelled to draw the inference that "there is normally a further element, the belief in legitimacy." In an earlier section of Economy and Society Weber makes similar allowances for the empirical proximity of motives... (shrink)

In this article, Zhu Xueqin provides an overall view of Rousseau’s political philosophy as he discusses Rousseau’s notion of the general will, the social contract, and the differences between Rousseau and thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke. Zhu argues that Rousseau’s political philosophy is deeply flawed as it advocates a moralization of politics that seeks to build a heavenly kingdom on earth, an ideal that has left a significant imprint on the modern world.

We study political influence in institutions where each member chooses a level of support for a collective goal. These individual choices determine the degree to which the goal is reached. Influence is assessed by newly defined binary relations, each of which ranks members on the basis of their relative performance at a corresponding level of participation. For institutions with three options (e.g., voting games in which each voter may vote “yes”, “abstain”, or vote “no”), we obtain three influence relations, (...) and show that their strict components may be cyclic. This latter property describes a “paradox of power” which contrasts with the transitivity of the unique influence relation of binary voting games. Weak conditions of anonymity suffice for each of these relations to be transitive. We also obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for each of these relations to be complete. Further, we characterize institutions in which the rankings induced by these relations, and the Banzhaf–Coleman and Shapley–Shubik power indices coincide. We argue that extending the influence relations to firms would be useful in efficiently assigning workers to different units of production. Finally, we provide applications to various forms of political and economic organizations. (shrink)

Pain and pleasure affect us all. Knowing this with empathy, and acting upon it, civilises us. Without such empathy, pain can become a means of domination and injustice. Moreover, pain is expressed and responded to in all social contexts, and the word “pain” has diverse meanings, depending on the associated activities. To observe various ways in which we say that it hurts, and the many meanings of pain, I follow ordinary-language philosophy, particularly Ludwig Wittgenstein and John L Austin, and I (...) consider a range of social and historical contexts, from the closest intimacy, everyday chatter, the clinic, and beyond, to the domain of public policy and human rights. This addresses our verbal expressions of pain, their lived contexts and effects, within relationships and among social groups, altering mutual obligations, eliciting actions and reactions, and thence creating moral, legal and political norms. My aim, then, is to consider the social and political implications of ordinary performative pain-talk, in particular regarding the relationship between pain and justice, public policy, human rights and law.Clinical Implications: Clinicians’ roles in disability assessment and pain management are often affected by extrinsic concerns such as financial incentives and the risks of substance abuse. This chapter addresses those complex issues, illustrating how they have arisen in particular historical circumstances, and with political and economic causes and consequences. While unable to provide ready-to-hand clinical solutions, a pragmatic ordinary-language approach to conversations and disagreements about pain helps to chart the grounds on which these matters are debated. (shrink)

The Language of Atoms argues that Epicurean writing, specifically Lucretius', offers a theory of performative language, of how language acts rather than describes.

The success of India's democracy hinges on the pivotal role played by its auxiliary institutions in negotiating major challenges through slow and persistent transformation. However, an objective audit of the performance of these institutions in the recent past would indicate a decline in operations and an acute crisis of corruption. Key institutions responsible for governance have been put under the spotlight by an alert and mobilized civil society, urging immediate measures for ensuring their operational efficiency and integrity. This essay (...) undertakes a critical examination of the present performance and efficiency of major democratic institutions in India, in the light of their prescribed roles and the malaise of corruption that plagues them. It argues that in order to articulate a comprehensive institutional response to the problem, relevant measures of political reform and constant vigil by civil society would prove crucial. The article is divided into six sections; first, a brief outline of the structure and changing nature of the institutional political set-up in India is provided; the second section examines the existing literature on , and the third section highlights the increasing incidence of corruption in India at various politico-administrative tiers. The fourth section delineates the inception and role of anti-corruption institutions in India, signifying the early response to corruption. The fifth section critically reviews the theoretical and statistical evidence of performance-decline in the major institutions at present and gauges the potency of corruption; the sixth section explores the existing and prospective institutional responses for tackling corruption and the final section presents concluding observations. (shrink)

Hegel’s philosophy has witnessed periods of revival and oblivion, at times considered to be an unrivalled and all-embracing system of thought, but often renounced with no less ardour. This book renews the dialogue with Hegel by looking at his legacy as a source of insight and judgement that helps us rethink contemporary economics. This book focuses on a concept of institution which is equally important for Hegel's political philosophy and for economic theory to date. The key contributions of this Hegelian (...) perspective on economics lead us to the synthesis of traditional approaches and new ideas gained in economic experiments and advanced by neuroeconomists, sociologists and cognitive scientists. The proper account of contemporary 'civil society' involves comprehending it as a historically evolving totality of individual minds, ideas and intersubjective structures that are mutually dependent, tied by recognitive relations, and assert themselves as a whole in the ongoing performative movement of 'objective spitit'. The ethics of recognition is paired with the ethics of associations that supports moral principles and gives them true, concrete universality. This unusual constellation of seemingly remote fields suggests that Hegel, read in a pragmatist mode, anticipated the new theories and philosophies of extended mind, social cognition and performativity. By providing a new conceptual apparatus and reformulating the theory of institutions in the light of this new synthesis, this book claims to give new meaning both to Hegel as interpreted from today, and to the social sciences. Seen from this perspective, such phenomena as cooperation in games, personal identity or justice in the version of Amartya Sen's 'realization-focused comparisons' are reinscribed into the logic of institutional theory. This 'Hegel' clearly goes beyond the limits of philosophical discussion and becomes a decisive reference for economists, sociologists, political scientists and other scholars who study the foundations and consequences of human sociality and try to explore and design the institutions necessary for a worthy common life. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the relationship between engagement and political institutions by using the example of the creation and development of the ombudsman institution. The article starts with the short introduction to key theoretical views about institutions, political institutions and institutionalization. Then, I concentrate on how political institutions change, i.e. whether they can be changed through social engagement and whether and when we can actually say that they are originally created by an engagement. By using the case of ombudsman, (...) I explore if political institutions can engage themselves and under what conditions, that is, whether are institutions characterized by in-built permanent reflexivity possible. (shrink)

_The assessment of institutional quality and its influence on economic performance is highly relevant in Nigeria due to the country's constantly changing governmental institutions, dynamic market circumstances, and diversified socioeconomic atmosphere. Thus, the study aims to investigate the impact of institutional quality on the economic performance of Nigeria. This study employed ex post facto research, while time series data was used, which spans from 1996 to 2021, sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Worldwide Governance (...) Indicators (WGI). The study employed unit root tests, Johansen cointegration, and the Error Correction Model as estimation techniques. However, post estimation tests such as normality, serial correlation, heteroskedasticity and stability tests were carried to ascertain the level of statistical accuracy outcome of the variables used. The findings suggest that there is a sustained nexus between the quality of institutions and characteristics related to economic growth. Also, it was equally found out that political stability has a significant impact in the short run. This suggests that a unit increase in political instability would definitely amount to a decrease in economic performance in Nigeria during the period under investigation. The study suggests enhancing accountability, transparency, administrative efficiency, and law adherence to improve Nigerian institutions. This can be achieved through reform implementation, capacity building, and good governance mechanisms, while reducing political unrest and fostering stability._. (shrink)

Freedom of Religion, Institution of Conscientious Objection and Political Practice in Post-Communist Slovakia1 The example of Slovakia is used to show how one of the post-socialist countries failed in fulfilling the demanding task of securing freedom of religious belief (including the right to conscientious objection) and, at the same time, securing all other human rights. An analysis of the methods used for changing the policies of pluralism and neutrality of the state into a policy of discrimination (e.g. concerning the registration (...) duty for churches) was carried out, followed by an analysis of a mechanism used for guaranteeing freedom of conscience of the members of the Catholic Church (the so-called Vatican Treaty). The treaty violates the prohibition of discrimination against women, because it makes it more difficult for them to have access to some health care services. Our hypothesis states that the hurriedly introduced right to conscientious objection is misused in this context as a means of regulating the politics of reproduction. In general, the re-Catholisation of the Slovak Republic follows two aims—to help in the fight for votes in the elections (because 70 % of Slovaks declare their religion to be Catholic), and to improve demographic development in the Slovak Republic (declared to be catastrophic by the Catholic Church), through hindering free access to abortions. (shrink)

This article argues for a new interpretation of the realist claim that politics is autonomous from morality and involves specific political values. First, this article defends an original normative source: functional normativity. Second, it advocates a substantive functional standard: political institutions ought to be assessed by their capacity to select and implement collective decisions. Drawing from the ‘etiological account’ in philosophy of biology, I will argue that functions yield normative standards, which are independent from morality. For example, a ‘good (...) heart’ is one that pumps blood well, and a good army is one that it is effective at exerting military force. I then interpret realism’s naturalistic conception of politics as an etiological function of social groups: namely making binding collective decisions under persistent disagreement. I conclude that political institutions should be evaluated realistically by how well they perform this task. Finally, I assess trade-offs between this functional political normativity and other moral values. I conclude that justice, fairness, freedom and equality remain obviously important concerns, but only once the basic political function is secured. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 15.2 (2005) 199-210 [Access article in PDF] Conflict-of-Interest Policy at the National Institutes of Health: The Pendulum Swings Wildly* Evan G. DeRenzo **This article addresses the National Institutes of Health (NIH) employee conflict-of-interest (COI) policy that went into effect February 2005. It is not, however, merely an account of another poorly crafted government policy that cries out for revision. Instead, it is also (...) a story about one of our nation's most important and prestigious institutions and its struggles to navigate the crosscurrents of scientific aspirations, power politics, public ambivalence toward capitalist economics in the biosciences, and the media's inclination to exaggerate problems and under report complicated facts. It is also a tale of greed, politics, purgatory, and redemption. The dramatic and abrupt change in the NIH COI policy demonstrates the difficulty of balancing the production of cutting-edge science with the demands for transparency resulting from work performed in the public interest on the public tab. It is an unhappy chapter in the life of a government agency that is also a national treasure. And, one hopes, it will be an example of how harmful and ill-conceived law can be revised and amended to advance national health and well-being. What is the New NIH COI Policy? The new NIH COI employee policy, more accurately referred to as the Interim Final Rule (Federal Register 2005), is a sweeping set of prohibitions on activities and holdings to reduce the possibility that NIH employees will have any actual [End Page 199] or apparent conflicts of interest. For the most part, the prohibitions are applied across-the-board—i.e., without distinction to employee category or function. The new policy includes prohibitions on outside activities, stock holdings, and awards. It prohibits all NIH employees from engaging in any compensated or uncompensated employment, including consulting, serving on advisory or other such boards, and compensated teaching, speaking, writing, or editing with certain kinds of entities. The first class of such entities is referred to as substantially affected organizations, defined as biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device companies, and others with similar interests. But these are not the only entities included in the prohibitions. Other organizations from which NIH employees now are cut off are hospitals, clinics, and other health care institutions; health, science, or health research-related professional associations and consumer and advocacy groups. Included also are educational institutions and not-for-profit independent research institutes that are, or were, recent NIH funding applicants, grantees, contractors, or cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) partners. The only exemptions appear to be for health care institutions at which NIH employees provide clinical care and some forms of writing—e.g., an NIH physician who moonlights at her/his local hospital's emergency room or submits a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal that receives only unrestricted funding from a prohibited entity. Prohibited and/or restricted holdings include stock in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies and others in research, development, or manufacture of medical devices, equipment, preparations, treatments, or products. The prohibitions apply to senior NIH employees; restrictions in the amount of such holdings apply to all remaining employees. Both apply to the spouses and minor children of NIH employees. If an NIH employee wins an award, the monetary allowance in most cases is limited to $200. In sum, the scope of this policy is vast, too vast to be reasonable. Too many employees are restricted in too many ways. Where appropriate restrictions have been placed on senior NIH employees, even these constructive aspects of the policy are overshadowed by the unfairness and destructiveness of other aspects. This policy far exceeds anything that could be considered sound. Fortunately, the policy has a built-in assessment process to begin at the end of the policy's first year of implementation. One can only hope that a fair and open evaluation will be conducted, the results of which surely must result in major revisions to what is now bad regulation. Why the Policy... (shrink)

Central banks have accumulated unparalleled power over the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Key for this development was the articulation and differentiation of monetary policy as a distinct policy domain. While political economists emphasize the foundational institutional changes that enabled this development, recent performativity-studies focus on central bankers’ invention of expectation management techniques. In line with a few other works, this article aims to bring these two aspects together. The key argument is that, over the last few decades, central banks have (...) identified different strategies to assume authority over “expectational politics” and reinforced dominant institutional forces within them. I introduce a comparative scheme to distinguish two different expectational governance regimes. My own empirical investigation focuses on a monetarist regime that emerged from corporatist contexts, where central banks enjoyed “embedded autonomy” and where commercial banks maintained conservative reserve management routines. I further argue that innovations towards inflation targeting took place in countries with non-existent or disintegrating corporatist structures and where central banks turned to finance to establish a different version of expectation coordination. A widespread adoption of this “financialized” expectational governance has been made possible by broader processes of institutional convergence that were supported by central bankers themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing in mind the (...) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

Exiles have long been transformative actors in their homelands: they foment revolution, sustain dissent, and work to create renewed political institutions and identities back home. Ongoing waves of migration ensure that they will continue to play these vital roles. Rather than focus on what exiles mean for the countries they enter--a perspective that often treats them as passive victims--The Ethics of Exile recognises their political and moral agency, and explores their rich and vital relationship to the communities they have left. (...) It offers a rare view of the other side of the migration story. -/- Engaging with a series of case studies, this book identifies the responsibilities and rights exiles have and the important roles they play in homeland politics. It argues that exile politics performs two functions: it can correct defective political institutions back home, and it can counter asymmetries of voice and power abroad. In short, exiles can act both as a linchpin and a buffer between political communities in crisis and the international actors who seek to, variously, aid and exploit them. When we think about the duties we owe to those forced to leave their homes, we should consider how to enable rather than thwart these roles. (shrink)

Using the tools of normative political theory, this book explores the political relationship between exiles and the communities from which they have fled. It makes two central claims. First, exiles have rights and responsibilities in their homelands and are morally required and permitted to play particular roles in the homeland. Second, in playing these roles, exile politics can perform two corrective functions: it can repair defective political institutions at home and it can compensate for institutional shortcomings in the global (...) domain. In short, exiles engage in a ‘politics from below’ and ‘away’ that produces alternative sites of power and can mitigate the several failings of an international system of states in an unequal world. This normative exploration of exile politics has a few implications. It counters an overwhelming focus, in both political philosophy and public discourse, on the consequences of forced migration for receiving societies—a focus that often treats exiles as passive actors. Recognizing the political agency of exiles reveals another side of the migration story, and allows for a more fulsome exploration of what political obligation and membership mean in an increasingly transnational world. Identifying exiles as important domestic and transnational actors also points to the ways third parties ought to enable the different roles exiles play in their communities of origin and in the international domain. And recognizing exile agency highlights the shortcomings of an international system of refugee protection that focuses on exiles’ humanitarian needs but denies them their political rights and agency. (shrink)

The European Commission produces the European Core Health Indicators, a database containing different tools used to compare European Union countries and recommend policy changes. The ECHI feeds multiple reports and documents and finds its way into health policies. From this arises the main research question addressed in this paper: How is health in Europe influenced by ECHI data practices? Specifically, we look at how some health issues or populations are prioritized or dismissed, which ultimately shapes the meaning of and knowledge (...) about health in Europe. To do so, we first develop the conceptual framework of “data performativity,” underlining how data practices shape their object/subject. We then explore the politics of evidence behind the ECHI health data that materialize into the absence of some health issues and populations and the hypervisibility of neoliberal health. In the end, we argue, the ECHI serves as a site of individual, collective, and political identity enunciation. (shrink)

This article examines a case study of international Communist propaganda during the Cold War. The Institute of Historical and Socio-Political Research, a historical propaganda organization affiliated to the Romanian Communist Party, succeeded in penetrating the Iron Curtain by distributing its works through a social network provided by the Italian Liberation Movement Institute, and in publishing its works in Italy, with the help of the Gramsci Institute, as well as publishers like Editori Riuniti and Nicola Teti. The ISISP (...) established a mutually beneficial partnership with various Italian actors: ISISP and the regime succeeded in publishing international propaganda; the Italian publishing houses were paid by ISISP to print and distribute their edited volumes, with the double advantage of keeping political ties with the RCP while also protecting their own limited finances. (shrink)

Set within the socio-political context of standards-based education reform, this article explores the constitutive role of teaching standards in the production of the practice and identity of the ‘accomplished’ teacher. It contrasts two idioms for thinking about and studying these standards, the representational and the performative. Utilising the material-semiotic approach of actor-network theory, it addresses the issue of how the representational idiom of teaching standards has become so authoritative that it readily eclipses other ways to think and ‘do’ them. In (...) tracing the development of a specific set of teaching standards as part of a national research project, the argument is made that standards should be understood as performative knowledge and identity practices. And, accounting them should also be performative. Accordingly, attention is given to key locales in which this development is taking place. Teaching standards emerge as ontologically variable and it is struggles around this variability that can create conditions for a renewed practice and politics of education reform. (shrink)

In this essay, Sarah Stitzlein addresses a key current crisis in public education: accountability. Rather than centrally being about poor performance of teachers or inefficiency of schools, as we most often hear in media outlets and in education reform speeches, Stitzlein argues the crisis is at heart one about citizen responsibility and political legitimacy. She claims that the recent accountability movement has shifted the onus of curing society's problems almost exclusively onto schools, but contends that these burdens should not (...) just be unidirectional. There is, Stitzlein maintains, a corresponding obligation on the part of citizens to public schools. This includes all citizens, not just those closely tied to schools through their children or employment. Moreover, this obligation entails a robust commitment that extends beyond merely supporting public schools through taxes, voting for levies, and choosing to send one's children to them. The responsibility of citizens includes upholding a commitment to schools as a central institution of democracy — something that sustains democracy but also, in its best forms, is democracy in action. (shrink)