À travers une lecture de la presse périodique comportant des perspectives religieuses diverses, ainsi que des sources et archives diplomatiques, cet article pose la question de l’émergence de la pratique de danse de couple européenne à Téhéran dans la première moitié du xxe siècle. Notre enquête révèle l’existence d’une anxiété nationaliste autour du problème des relations de genre lié à la présence du corps militaire des Alliés qui ont su infiltrer le milieu urbain et la vie sociale iranienne notamment (...) par la pratique de la danse. Par un examen critique des discours sur la performance du genre incorporée par ces pratiques « modernes » de danse de couple a Téhéran, on observe l’importance des liens établis entre la sociabilité du corps dansant, l’érotisme (shahvat), la nudité, la pratique de la prostitution, et la notion d’une modernité « imitée ». En contextualisant la réception de ces danses vis-à-vis de la scène politique iranienne de l’époque on remarque que chacun de ces éléments a servi à l’élaboration d’un discours nationaliste sur les danses de couple qui seront construites et vues par les contemporains comme complices avec des phénomènes du colonialisme et de l’impérialisme menaçant l’esprit de l’Iran et de l’Islam. (shrink)

Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida's "political turn," marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea (...) of friendship pursued down the ages. Derrida's thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, "my friends, there is no friend" and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought--friendship and enmity, private and public life--have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar and male-centered notion of fraternity and the virile virtue whose authority has gone unquestioned in our culture of friendship and our models of democracy. The future of the political, for Derrida, becomes the future of friends, the invention of a radically new friendship, of a deeper and more inclusive democracy. This remarkable book, his most profoundly important for many years, offers a challenging and inspiring vision of that future. (shrink)

A rich exploration of the idea of friendship and its political consequences, past and future, by the most influential of contemporary philosophers. Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida's "political turn," marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted (...) others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea of friendship pursued down the ages. Derrida's thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, "my friends, there is no friend" and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought—friendship and enmity, private and public life—have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar and male-centered notion of fraternity and the virile virtue whose authority has gone unquestioned in our culture of friendship and our models of democracy The future of the political, for Derrida, becomes the future of friends, the invention of a radically new friendship, of a deeper and more inclusive democracy. This remarkable book, his most profoundly important for many years, offers a challenging and inspiring vision of that future. (shrink)

The proclamation Banbiantian, which was proposed during the Mao era, is a vivid and straightforward appellation of women in new China that has gained popularity in national and folk discourses over the past seven decades. This article disassembles this term into three elements — quotation marks, Banbian, and tian — to conduct a political phenomenological analysis. By exploring and sorting reports related to Banbiantian in Renmin ribao, this article reflects on changes in relation to status and role of women (...) in the Mao era on the basis of three findings. Firstly, the quotation marks make Banbiantian a symbol of women’s actual experience and ideal image while playing a role in enhancement and guidance. Secondly, Banbian indicates the equal ratio of men and women and symbolizes the dynamic adjustment in determining equal rights, demonstrating equal capabilities, and improving equal status. Thirdly, tian is the scope of women’s liberation. Through women’s participation in public labor and political activities, coupled with balanced national and regional coordination, its scope continues to expand, extending from the family to society and the country. (shrink)

: The proclamation Banbiantian, which was proposed during the Mao era, is a vivid and straightforward appellation of women in new China that has gained popularity in national and folk discourses over the past seven decades. This article disassembles this term into three elements — quotation marks, Banbian, and tian — to conduct a political phenomenological analysis. By exploring and sorting reports related to Banbiantian in Renmin ribao, this article reflects on changes in relation to status and role of (...) women in the Mao era on the basis of three findings. Firstly, the quotation marks make Banbiantian a symbol of women’s actual experience and ideal image while playing a role in enhancement and guidance. Secondly, Banbian indicates the equal ratio of men and women and symbolizes the dynamic adjustment in determining equal rights, demonstrating equal capabilities, and improving equal status. Thirdly, tian is the scope of women’s liberation. Through women’s participation in public labor and political activities, coupled with balanced national and regional coordination, its scope continues to expand, extending from the family to society and the country. (shrink)

This paper traces back on a personal tone a provocative evocation of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The author considers existentialism as a laboratory of existence that influenced a generation's manner of living and writing and made one's existential desires into historical and political acts. Its most representative mode of expression, literature, was as an indicator of the presence of the private throughout the public world and time. In this view, de Beauvoir's presence is approached both from the (...) perspective of her understanding of the female, and from the particular kind of couple she formed with Sartre. (shrink)

The contributors analyse the key roles in constructing peaceful international couple relationships and their foreign-policy outcomes, at a time of acute trust deficit in international affairs. They show that to establish prospects of conflict transformation and sustainable international policy cooperation, the most positive long-term impact derives from sub-state intermediary levels and middle-class elites promoting integration through incremental identity-change, rather than from diplomatic engagement between rivals (despite the relevance of leaders embedded in institutional frameworks for facilitating rapprochement). A differentiation approach (...) is applied throughout the volume, revealing the various mechanisms at work, moving from the rationalist to the sociological, from intergovernmental strategic bargaining to societal integration and the construction of new identities below the state-level. (shrink)

This book reflects on Indonesia's recent experience with REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), all set within a broader discussion of neoliberal environmentalism, hyper-capitalism and Indonesian carbon politics. Drawing on the author's political ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Jakarta, Central Sulawesi and Oslo, where the author examined Norway's interests and role in implementing REDD, this book discusses the long evolution of the idea that foreign state and private financing can be used to protect tropical forests and the carbon (...) stored within them, resulting in both local economic development and global climate benefits. It shows how neoliberal environmental approaches to climate change, of which REDD is a leading example, increases the severity of political contestations that must be overcome to reach global climate mitigation goals, and how recent incarnations of REDD have tended to forget earlier scholarly advice to couple anti-deforestation approaches with policies that reduce industrial carbon emissions. In Indonesia, tectonic political and economic forces are shown to have negatively impacted REDD implementation. Using a political ecology approach, the book links the literature on REDD with that covering Indonesia's recent democratic regression, highlighting how the country's environmental performance is inextricably linked to the timbre of its political governance. Given the severity of the political contestations that must be overcome to reach its stated goals, REDD cannot replace global policies that drastically reduce industrial carbon emissions. This book will be of great interests to students and scholars of political ecology, deforestation, climate change, environmental politics, natural resource management and environmental conservation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that opposite-sex couples planning weddings have a duty to make their choices in ways that undermine the harmful norms that lead to most women taking their husband’s last names when they marry, and most weddings being extremely expensive. This duty, however, is not a duty to significantly reduce the prevalence of those norms, since doing so is generally not in the power of individual couples. Rather, it is a duty to provide observing couples around them (...) with new live options for their own weddings. (shrink)

This paper traces back on a personal tone a provocative evocation of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The author considers existentialism as a laboratory of existence that influenced a generation's manner of living and writing and made one's existential desires into historical and political acts. Its most representative mode of expression, literature, was as an indicator of the presence of the private throughout the public world and time. In this view, de Beauvoir's presence is approached both from the (...) perspective of her understanding of the female, and from the particular kind of couple she formed with Sartre. (shrink)

This article presents two interlocking arguments for epistemic political egalitarianism. I argue, first, that coping with multidimensional social complexity requires the integration of expertise. This is the task of political parties as collective epistemic agents who transform abstract value judgments into sufficiently coherent and specific conceptions of justice for their society. Because parties thus severely lower the relevant threshold of comparison of political competence, citizens have reason to regard each other as epistemic equals. Drawing on the virulent (...) “peer disagreement debate,” I then analyze the epistemic significance of political disagreement. I contend that citizens ought to pursue epistemic conciliation, an idea I contrast to the ideals of compromise and of consensus. Subsequently, I introduce insights from public choice theory and empirical findings which show that and why multi-party electoral competition coupled with equal rights to participation tends to produce conciliatory outcomes. We thus have reason to endorse political egalitarianism on epistemic grounds. (shrink)

Flagging labor governance in far-flung supply networks has prompted greater scrutiny of instrumental CSR and calls for models that are tethered more closely to accountability, constraint, and oversight. Political CSR is an apt response, but this paper seeks to buttress its deliberative moorings by arguing that the agonist notion of ‘domesticated conflict’ provides a necessary foundation for substantive deliberation. Because deliberation is more viable and effective when coupled with some means of coercion, a concept of CSR solely premised on (...) reciprocal corporate-stakeholder engagement is pre-mature; efforts should first be directed toward the antecedents of reciprocity and how it is to be achieved, and only then does deliberation become a reliably substantive exercise. The resulting account of agonistic CSR is generated through agonistic principles of realism, pro-action, contestation, and countervailence, and illustrated by the Bangladesh Accord. (shrink)

Kant argues that morals should not only constrain politics, but that morals and politics properly understood cannot conflict. Such an uncompromising stance on the relation of morals to politics has been branded unrealistic and even politically irresponsible. While justice can afford to be blind, politics must keep its eyes wide open. In response to this charge I argue that Kant’s position on the relation of morals to politics is both morally uncompromising and yet politically flexible, both principled and practical. Kantian (...) justice is not blind to circumstances, and we need not abandon our convictions in order to be politically responsible. Indeed, Kant argues that future political progress can only be achieved when the coerced rule of right is coupled with the non-coerced rule of virtue. For Kant, freedom and justice are intertwined with publicity, and publicity depends upon the critical acumen and moral candour of an enlightened and virtuous citizenry. (shrink)

This book is meant to help resolve a couple of uncertainties.

Contemporary political theory is fractured in its account of ontology and methods. One prominent fault line is between empirical and normative theory – the former usually called ‘philosophy of social science’, or ‘social-science methodology’, and not ‘theory’ at all. A second fault line exists between analytical and post-modern political theory. These fractures prevent political researchers who engage with the same substantive issues, such as the right of same-sex couples to marry, from speaking to one another in a (...) common language. This paper's first section discusses the history of the fact-value divide in political studies: a history that led to the contemporary state of the discipline. The second section argues that Searle's philosophy provides tools that can bridge this divide. The third section raises normative objections that limit the extent to which one can accept Searle's theory as a fully general account of social and political reality. Although limited in scope, Searle's argument should be welcomed as an attempt to provide a common set of important tools for political researchers on all sides of these debates. (shrink)

ArgumentThe paper is based on a hitherto unexplored document (audiotape of an interview accompanied by a German transcript) from 1953, located in the Freud Papers at the Library of Congress. It contributes to a better understanding of the impact of Freud and of Psychoanalysis on personalities from the exact sciences, here represented by the noted applied mathematicians Richard von Mises and Hilda Geiringer from Vienna. The detailed discussion of the interview sheds some new light on the different roles of Kraus (...) and Freud in the Vienna culture, on the Vienna Jugendkulturbewegung (youth culture movement) during WWI in which Geiringer was involved, on Freud’s and Siegfried Bernfeld’s standing around 1930 among German philosophers and psychologists, and on Wilhelm Fließ’ theory of periodicity, which von Mises—based on his attitude as an applied mathematician—defended against superficial accusations. Finally, new biographical material is provided for von Mises and the remotely related Freud family, and for Geiringer’s and von Mises’ early lives. The interview, which was taken during the Cold War, also allows conclusions as to how politics influenced the memories and views of the participants. Part of the aim of the paper is historical documentation of unknown material (letters by Karl Kraus and Wolfgang Köhler, one book review by Wilhelm Ostwald, a file on Richard Pfennig), including some correction of erroneous information in the literature. (shrink)

The rise in world prices of natural resources, coupled with the resource discoveries induced by high prices, is transforming Africa's opportunities. The economic future of Africa will be determined by whether this opportunity is seized or missed. The history of resource extraction in Africa is not encouraging. This paper reviews and develops the political economy of natural resources as a guide to how Africa might avoid a repetition of that history.

Practical political relations according to Luce Irigaray ground the possibilities for emerging to a new political epoch. She articulates that in order to move toward a more peaceful and emancipated politics, philosophers must focus more on subject-subject relations as opposed to subject-object relations. This in turn promotes the possibility of relating to a naturally and culturally different other. She also elaborates how an emancipated politics demands initially and primarily grounding subjectivity in the two, rather than in individuality or (...) collectivity. This is in contrast to classical liberalism which conceives of a social contract between individual agents who relate through mediations of property. Her philosophy conceives of refounding politics not only in the sphere of public government, but also in the traditionally private domestic sphere, which must become politically awakened. She articulates ways of refounding the family and the couple mediated first by relations between two, and liberating the family from its primary role as the material ground of society. Irigaray suggests that political relations at all levels must be rooted in difference rather than sameness, starting with recognizing sexual difference. Establishing such conditions involves creating civil protections and rights, especially for women, and establishing contexts nurturing to desire, including cultivating sensitivity and attending to sensible differences. Liberating contemporary politics from competitiveness and violence, and providing favorable conditions for peace, demands first attending to cultivating difference and fostering relations between two. (shrink)

In this important new work in political and constitutional theory, Michael J. Perry elaborates and defends an account of the political morality of liberal democracy: the moral convictions and commitments that in a liberal democracy should govern decisions about what laws to enact and what policies to pursue. The fundamental questions addressed in this book concern the grounding, the content, the implications for one or another moral controversy and the judicial enforcement of the political morality of liberal (...) democracy. The particular issues discussed include whether government may ban pre-viability abortion, whether government may refuse to extend the benefit of law to same-sex couples and what role religion should play in the politics and law of a liberal democracy. (shrink)

During the latter half of the twentieth century political realism dominated national and international landscapes. The twenty-first century has seen the rise of neo‐conservatism, what Charles Krauthammer has called “democratic realism” and what others see as a re-birth of Wilsonianism—making the world safe for democracy. Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, in a speech on Sept. 17, 2007 in Williamsburg, VA, at the World Forum on the Future of Democracy, acknowledged these different strains of current U.S. policy, saying (...) that “once again [people are] talking about the competing impulses in U.S. foreign policy: realism versus idealism, freedom versus security, values versus interests.” These competing concerns—but especially fear about terrorism coupled with asense of retributive justice—have divided much of the world. Nonetheless, it is clear that no matter what terms one gives to domestic and foreign policies, they are all in one way or another mired in the attitude that the end justifies the means, an attitude that will remain both morally and politically bankrupt until such time as people, policies, and programs embrace the concept of principled nonviolence, if not principled nonviolence itself. (shrink)

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

The Hellenistic monarchies arose from the collapse of Alexander’s empire, and represented new forms of rule. This study demonstrates how the Hellenistic ruler presented himself and his family in picture, text and on official occasions. In particular the representation of the Hellenistic royal couple and the role of the queen at court are examined on the basis of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Central aspects of the study are the political background to the marriage between Ptolemy II, during his reign (...) that marriage between royal siblings and the deification of the ruling royal couple were introduces, and his sister Arsinoë II, and how the royal couple presented themselves to Greeks, Macedonians, and Egyptians. (shrink)

This paper examines the conceptual development of the philosophical justifications for tyrannicide. It posits that the political philosophy of tyrannicide can be categorised into three distinct periods or models, the classical, medieval, and liberal, respectively. It argues that each model contained unique themes and principles that justified tyrannicide in that period; the classical, through the importance attached to public life and the functional role of leadership; the medieval, through natural law doctrine; and the liberal, through the postulates of social (...) contract theory. Subsequent analysis of these different models however, reveals that these historical models are unable to provide a sufficient philosophical basis for a contemporary justification of tyrannicide. In Part II, it will be contended that a reinvigorated conception of self-defence, a theme common to all three models, when coupled with the modern notion of universal human rights, may provide the foundation for a contemporary theory of tyrannicide. (shrink)

Americans have long prided themselves on living in a country that serves as a beacon of democracy to the world, but from the time of the founding they have also engaged in debates over what the criteria for democracy are as they seek to validate their faith in the United States as a democratic regime. In this book John Gunnell shows how the academic discipline of political science has contributed in a major way to this ongoing dialogue, thereby playing (...) a significant role in political education and the formulation of popular conceptions of American democracy. Using the distinctive “internalist” approach he has developed for writing intellectual history, Gunnell traces the dynamics of conceptual change and continuity as American political science evolved from a focus in the nineteenth century on the idea of the state, through the emergence of a pluralist theory of democracy in the 1920s and its transfiguration into liberalism in the mid-1930s, up to the rearticulation of pluralist theory in the 1950s and its resurgence, yet again, in the 1990s. Along the way he explores how political scientists have grappled with a fundamental question about popular sovereignty: Does democracy require a people and a national democratic community, or can the requisites of democracy be achieved through fortuitous social configurations coupled with the design of certain institutional mechanisms? (shrink)

In the 1930s, the two primary goals of the Turkish state were to establish national unity and to modernize the country. The achievement of these goals was linked to the transformation of the human body in line with modern, rational and scientific values. The body politics of the new regime aspired to discipline society in order to create modern, healthy and dutiful citizens by regulating the human body in many spheres of life, including clothing, aesthetics, health, reproduction, childcare and housekeeping. (...) Eugenics emerged as a part of the state’s hygienic and ethical regulation of the human body. The state abolished abortion, mandated pre-marital examinations of couples, established childcare institutions, educated mothers, and aimed to prevent epidemics and alcoholism. The Turkish eugenicists were a small group of medical doctors who were influential in shaping these public policies. In accordance with the general Republican discourse, the eugenicists were critical of both traditional society and the Ottoman regime. The eugenicists founded their criticism on the old regime’s ignorance of modern hygienic and reproductive practices. Although Turkish eugenic discourse was influenced by Western eugenics literature, it was also shaped by the particular concerns of the Kemalist regime such as natalism, childcare and social hygiene policies. The collectivist discourse of the Kemalist regime was so dominant that, in contrast to their European and American counterparts, the Turkish eugenicists were not at all concerned with ethnic and class diversity within society. (shrink)

“Ancient Chinese political thought” refers to the reflections and discussions about politics during the period before the First Emperor established the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE. Although one could also infer some political thought of that period from the other archeological evidence, the main sources of such reflections and discussions are texts believed to date back to that period, some of which became the foundation of Chinese education that began in the Han dynasty and lasted till the beginning (...) of the 20th century. Although disrupted by the turbulent history of China’s encounter with modernity in the early 20th century, the study of ancient Chinese texts has become the center of what is known as “national studies ” in the People’s Republic of China today, with institutes devoted to it in many Chinese universities, supporting researchers from various disciplines. In the revival of Confucianism coupled with the rise of cultural nationalism in mainland China, many Chinese scholars have turned to ancient Chinese political thought for inspiration in their search for distinctively Chinese perspectives on politics, both local and global, and they advocate Chinese alternatives or models to address contemporary challenges. With limited space, the publications selected for this article make up only a small fraction of the works in English and even fewer in Mandarin that discuss ancient Chinese political thought. In addition to being studied as part of early Chinese civilization that has influenced Chinese society through subsequent centuries, political theorists and philosophers engage ancient Chinese political thought to address perennial or contemporary political problems, contributing significantly to the growth of comparative political theory and comparative political philosophy. (shrink)

This paper considers political agency and space as found in Cavarero's For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression in order to take a critical philosophical approach to human rights education and the political implications of its increasingly legal discourse. Like Arendt, Cavarero is concerned with a radical rethinking of political space, as not limited to place or legal borders, but bound by our human condition of plurality and relationality. Both Arendt and Cavarero want (...) politics to be coupled with justice, nevertheless, Cavarero provides a notion of politics that lets us think beyond territorial terms of a polis, which opens for exploring an expanded conceptualization of human rights politics, as not bound by national legislative measures, but as concerning political action in-between human beings. In contrast to the dominant discourse on ‘human rights experts’ who frame the content for HRE, the notion of ‘absolute local space’ questions the dichotomy of universal/particular in raising the importance of a plurality of unique voices who create a spectrum for the universality of rights. (shrink)

This article defends the thesis that, in light of the postulates of liberal ethics, it is not possible to put forward universal arguments in support of any form of marriage. The existing forms of marriage should be either deemed unjust or founded on specific arguments recognized within a particular political community and determining the understanding of justice in a particular society. It defends the thesis that the requirement of universality, and consequently of impartiality, is not met, since behind every (...) form of marriage there is a certain “minimum” anthropological approach. Marriage is discussed as a privilege granted to particular groups by the political community. The comments are made with reference to the discussion between Krzysztof Saja and Tomasz Sieczkowski concerning the problem of discrimination against same-sex couples in Polish legislation. (shrink)

The most glamorous and even glorious moments in a legal system come when a high court recognizes an abstract principle involving, for example, human liberty or equality. Indeed, Americans, and not a few non-Americans, have been greatly stirred--and divided--by the opinions of the Supreme Court, especially in the area of race relations, where the Court has tried to revolutionize American society. But these stirring decisions are aberrations, says Cass R. Sunstein, and perhaps thankfully so. In Legal Reasoning and Political (...) Conflict, Sunstein, one of America's best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts. Sunstein offers a close analysis of the way the law can mediate disputes in a diverse society, examining how the law works in practical terms, and showing that, to arrive at workable, practical solutions, judges must avoid broad, abstract reasoning. Why? For one thing, critics and adversaries who would never agree on fundamental ideals are often willing to accept the concrete details of a particular decision. Likewise, a plea bargain for someone caught exceeding the speed limit need not--indeed, must not--delve into sweeping issues of government regulation and personal liberty. Thus judges purposely limit the scope of their decisions to avoid reopening large-scale controversies. Sunstein calls such actions incompletely theorized agreements. In identifying them as the core feature of legal reasoning--and as a central part of constitutional thinking in America, South Africa, and Eastern Europe-- he takes issue with advocates of comprehensive theories and systemization, from Robert Bork to Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, and Ronald Dworkin, who defends an ambitious role for courts in the elaboration of rights. Equally important, Sunstein goes on to argue that it is the living practice of the nation's citizens that truly makes law. For example, he cites Griswold v. Connecticut, a groundbreaking case in which the Supreme Court struck down Connecticut's restrictions on the use of contraceptives by married couples--a law that was no longer enforced by prosecutors. In overturning the legislation, the Court invoked the abstract right of privacy; the author asserts that the justices should have appealed to the narrower principle that citizens need not comply with laws that lack real enforcement. By avoiding large-scale issues and values, such a decision could have led to a different outcome in Bowers v. Hardwick, the decision that upheld Georgia's rarely prosecuted ban on sodomy. And by pointing to the need for flexibility over time and circumstances, Sunstein offers a novel understanding of the old ideal of the rule of law. Legal reasoning can seem impenetrable, mysterious, baroque. This book helps dissolve the mystery. Whether discussing the interpretation of the Constitution or the spell cast by the revolutionary Warren Court, Cass Sunstein writes with grace and power, offering a striking and original vision of the role of the law in a diverse society. In his flexible, practical approach to legal reasoning, he moves the debate over fundamental values and principles out of the courts and back to its rightful place in a democratic state: the legislatures elected by the people. (shrink)

Within the world of pharmacology, the male body has traditionally been taken as the biological norm. Coupled with this, concern about danger to the unborn foetus has meant that, until very recently, ‘women of childbearing potential’ were routinely excluded from most of the early phases of clinical drug testing. Consequently, most drugs tested during Phase I trials were initially carried out on healthy male volunteers. During subsequent phases when drugs were tested on patients, women remained largely under-represented. As a result, (...) some drugs prescribed for women have later been discovered to be lacking in efficacy, and women are more likely to suffer adverse drug reactions than men. The exclusion of women during the early phases of clinical drug trials has now been lifted and drugs are currently being more widely tested on women. This paper examines the differing political and ethical positions adopted by the pharmaceutical industry, drug regulators, pharmacologists, women's groups and patient activists in relation to the exclusion and inclusion of women in clinical drug trials. (shrink)

Owing most probably to Western-style modernization, marriage is increasingly understood to be a business strictly for married couples. However, I argue that this is an error, as many inexperienced couples are left to their own devices, and thereby often fail to utilize marriage to acquire the social competencies that are crucial to wider social responsibilities, including political leadership. The modern atomic conception of marriage is influenced by the Kantinspired Western conception of moral autonomy. Nevertheless, I reject this conception as (...) excessively absolutist, and argue that moral autonomy can be tempered by lack of experience, human desire and circumstantial pressures in life. Many African societies view marriage as a union of societies rather than that of individuals, and I argue that the moral support offered by the extended family and the community at large is ultimately geared to inculcate in the spouses inter-personal and social skills of restraint, prudence, tolerance, constructive criticism and other virtues desperately needed to execute societal responsibilities. (shrink)

The most glamorous and even glorious moments in a legal system come when a high court recognizes an abstract principle involving, for example, human liberty or equality. Indeed, Americans, and not a few non-Americans, have been greatly stirred--and divided--by the opinions of the Supreme Court, especially in the area of race relations, where the Court has tried to revolutionize American society. But these stirring decisions are aberrations, says Cass R. Sunstein, and perhaps thankfully so. In Legal Reasoning and Political (...) Conflict, Sunstein, one of America's best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts. Sunstein offers a close analysis of the way the law can mediate disputes in a diverse society, examining how the law works in practical terms, and showing that, to arrive at workable, practical solutions, judges must avoid broad, abstract reasoning. Why? For one thing, critics and adversaries who would never agree on fundamental ideals are often willing to accept the concrete details of a particular decision. Likewise, a plea bargain for someone caught exceeding the speed limit need not--indeed, must not--delve into sweeping issues of government regulation and personal liberty. Thus judges purposely limit the scope of their decisions to avoid reopening large-scale controversies. Sunstein calls such actions incompletely theorized agreements. In identifying them as the core feature of legal reasoning--and as a central part of constitutional thinking in America, South Africa, and Eastern Europe-- he takes issue with advocates of comprehensive theories and systemization, from Robert Bork to Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, and Ronald Dworkin, who defends an ambitious role for courts in the elaboration of rights. Equally important, Sunstein goes on to argue that it is the living practice of the nation's citizens that truly makes law. For example, he cites Griswold v. Connecticut, a groundbreaking case in which the Supreme Court struck down Connecticut's restrictions on the use of contraceptives by married couples--a law that was no longer enforced by prosecutors. In overturning the legislation, the Court invoked the abstract right of privacy; the author asserts that the justices should have appealed to the narrower principle that citizens need not comply with laws that lack real enforcement. By avoiding large-scale issues and values, such a decision could have led to a different outcome in Bowers v. Hardwick, the decision that upheld Georgia's rarely prosecuted ban on sodomy. And by pointing to the need for flexibility over time and circumstances, Sunstein offers a novel understanding of the old ideal of the rule of law. Legal reasoning can seem impenetrable, mysterious, baroque. This book helps dissolve the mystery. Whether discussing the interpretation of the Constitution or the spell cast by the revolutionary Warren Court, Cass Sunstein writes with grace and power, offering a striking and original vision of the role of the law in a diverse society. In his flexible, practical approach to legal reasoning, he moves the debate over fundamental values and principles out of the courts and back to its rightful place in a democratic state: the legislatures elected by the people. (shrink)

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

The fundamental difference between Castoriadis' and Papaioannou's accounts of the link between tragedy and the political is that Castoriadis insists on a political form whilst Papaioannou insists on a social actor. The starting point for this essay, then, are two thinkers: one whose main interest was a political and philosophical reflection on the social-historical and one whose main interest was a philosophical reflection on the arts. Surprisingly, however, the end situation is one where Castoriadis gives us a (...) political explanation of the link between tragedy and the political whilst Papaioannou gives us a social explanation of the same phenomenon. How can this difference be accounted for? First, distinguishing their respective conceptualisations of the political allows us to see that where one thinker privileges restlessness and revolution, the other privileges law and regime. Second, looking at their depictions of the essential aspects of tragedy places them on opposing sides of the couple hubris- dike, in a way that leads to two radically different conceptualisations of the relation in question. (shrink)

Relationship research suggests that romantic relationships will suffer most from four conversation poisons: expressions of contempt, excessive criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. John Gottman and his collaborators have long urged couples to deploy the four antidotes of gentle start-ups, building a culture of appreciation, taking responsibility, and physiological self-soothing. I explain how these conversation poisons contribute to political polarization and how the antidotes can help.

Policy discussions and corporate strategies on machine learning are increasingly championing data reuse as a key element in digital transformations. These aspirations are often coupled with a focus on responsibility, ethics and transparency, as well as emergent forms of regulation that seek to set demands for corporate conduct and the protection of civic rights. And the Protective measures include methods of traceability and assessments of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ datasets and algorithms that are considered to be traceable, stable and contained. However, (...) these ways of thinking about both technology and ethics obscure a fundamental issue, namely that machine learning systems entangle data, algorithms and more-than-human environments in ways that challenge a well-defined separation. This article investigates the fundamental fallacy of most data reuse strategies as well as their regulation and mitigation strategies that data can somehow be followed, contained and controlled in machine learning processes. Instead, the article argues that we need to understand the reuse of data as an inherently entangled phenomenon. To examine this tension between the discursive regimes and the realities of data reuse, we advance the notion of reuse entanglements as an analytical lens. The main contribution of the article is the conceptualization of reuse that places entanglements at its core and the articulation of its relevance using empirical illustrations. This is important, we argue, for our understanding of the nature of data and algorithms, for the practical uses of data and algorithms and our attitudes regarding ethics, responsibility and regulation. (shrink)

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

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward a Political Economy of the Libro De AlexandreSimone Pinet (bio)The carefully composed and craftily pronounced stanzas of the thirteenth-century Libro de Alexandre, if mostly a (free) translation of Gautier de Châtillon’s Alexandreis, provide readers with glimpses of northern Iberia in descriptions and comparisons, but especially through curious formulations and eloquent rewritings.1 These incite the reader to reflect upon the emergence of the vernacular regime of literary composition (...) by clerics that developed in the thirteenth century, a corpus known to us as the mester de clerecía. In this corpus, the use of the vernacular, in particular, brings with it an unproblematized sense of transparency of the context in which the works of mester de clerecía were produced, a genre of which the Libro de Alexandre is a key poetic point of origin. Next to an emphasis on a Latinate syntax and recitation techniques that underline the corpus’s clerical production, the irruption of quotidian phrases, vocabulary, figures of medievalization, and especially of Iberization, make these texts a privileged site to study the articulation of the varied phenomena that from economics to the grammatical, from Aristotle to technology, come to revolutionize medieval culture from the twelfth century onward. Of the many peculiar uses of the vernacular in the Libro de Alexandre, references that connote a sense of worthlessness through the repeated structure “not worth an X, ” especially those that express the comparison with minted coinage of little value: dinero, meaja, pepión, or sueldo, as in “not worth a penny,”2 will serve here as a point of entry. These hyperbolic [End Page 44] expressions, common to Romance languages, underline not only the moral and economic ambivalence of terms such as preçio, valor, honor, pagar(se), dar crédito, and so forth, but also the incorporation of a monetary economy within this ambivalence. These types of expressions, moreover, produce a linguistic marker for such ambiguity, as Louis F. Sas noted when he underlined the “affect” which marks, at the level of speech, the reference to abstract terms such as infinity, nothing, and zero in these types of constructions [469, 471].3Sas notes that the vast majority of the occurrences of these phrases in the Libro de Alexandre happen “in combination with the word valer, with its synonyms, or with dar por, that is, in contexts of exchange” [475]. Many years before Sas exhaustively documented these expressions, Alois Richard Nykl had interpreted their presence as related to barter and a supposed clerical contact with local markets, which to some extent could explain their frequent use in the poem, and he especially mentioned the use of fruits and vegetables in these expressions. Nykl also suggested these were “rustic” similes, favored by men of the clergy such as Berceo, Juan Ruiz, and the authors of the Alexandre and the Fernán González, showing, in his opinion, these men’s contact with a certain world in which fruits and vegetables could serve as payment for the church or diezmo, bringing in through this curious interpretation not only a historical economic context but also its [End Page 45] qualification as something “rustic” or at least foreign to the cleric [311].4In 1929, a couple of years after Nykl’s article appeared, George Irving Dale would correct his affirmations, noting that the expressions called “rustic” by Nykl belonged to a well-studied figure called figurative negation. Dale remarked that figurative negation appeared already in the Poema de mio Cid, and he directed the reader to the bibliography offered by Menéndez Pidal in his edition of the Poema under the title of “Refuerzo de la Negación” [Cantar de Mio Cid 1: 376 and glossary]. In his article, Dale wrote in passing that the type of adjectives used with these expressions “increases the insignificance or lack of value” [324]. Later, agreeing with Dale, Sas wrote that the emphasis added to these phrases through the use of adjectives such as vile or rotten did not point to any medieval particular practice beyond that of a peculiar affect, which has been interpreted in terms of “simplicity.” In the next pages I want to suggest some lines of... (shrink)

In the Coman case, the European Court of Justice was asked whether the term “spouse”—for the purposes of EU law—includes the same-sex spouse of an EU citizen who has moved between EU Member States. The ECJ answered this question affirmatively, holding that a refusal to recognise a same-sex marriage and the resultant refusal to grant family reunification rights to a Union citizen who moves to another Member State, would constitute an unjustified restriction on the right to free movement that Union (...) citizens enjoy under EU law. This case comment analyses the judgment, arguing that the Court’s pronouncement is a very welcome first step towards marriage equality at a cross-border level in the EU. At the same time, following the delivery of this ruling, a lot of questions have arisen and gaps in the protection of same-sex couples persist, and these are also analysed in this piece. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical account of love in relation to contemporary Marxist and post-structuralist conceptions of politics. Shifting the emphasis away from both the ontological question, “what is love?,” and the epistemological question, “how do we acquire certainty about love?,” this article advances a pedagogical question: how might love enable us to learn? To answer this question we turn to the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. After examining the tensions between ontological (...) and ideological conceptions of love, we explore Hardt and Negri’s work on love as part of the affective labour of the “multitude.” We then trace the development of Deleuze’s early work on love as an apprenticeship to signs to his later exploration of love in relation to multiplicity. In doing so, this article seeks to renovate the concept of love itself, framing it in terms of difference rather than merging and unity, and locating it outside the confines of the heterosexual couple and nuclear family. (shrink)

Contains fourteen essays and an introduction addressing the main areas of scholarly interest for Richard W. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Washington University, St Louis Questions how individuals envision the public good in modern Britain and how, through religious and moral beliefs, coupled with wisdom and political savvy, they can improve the public good through the ever-changing nineteenth century political institutions Essays range from studies of local electoral politics and parliamentary reform campaign to national political party organization, high politics (...) and the role religion and empire played in the creation of national policy Examines the influence of individuals on the political process through their professional work in historical and philosophical writing, journalism and missionary work at home and abroad Provides new original research in the area of modern British political history together in Parliamentary History. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1 (2000) 59-73 [Access article in PDF] Thomas Hobbes: Telling the Story of the Science of Politics Anat Biletzki Science and storytelling First, the traditional commonplaces: Science does not tell stories. Disciplines purporting to be sciences eschew their storytelling aspects in favor of axiomatic, deductive, demonstrative, or whatnot essentials of science. Those deeming the story itself essential give up (happily or less willingly) the label of (...) science and locate themselves under other institutionalized labels such as Humanities. 1 Then there are the disciplines that wobble on the fence, desiring, for various reasons that are more readily analyzed by historical sociologists, the epithet of Science, yet not always achieving such recognition. Chief players in this game are history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. And if my rendition of this conflict between pretensions and performance seem blatantly pejorative, let me rephrase it: their own practitioners--historians, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists--believe the issue of their scientific status a problem of no small import. It is, indeed, the question "Are we a science?" that figures in the most fundamental debates concerning the purpose, essence, and methodology of these disciplines.By use of a case study, I will try to support a seemingly conciliatory thesis: social sciences are, by definition and therefore of necessity, on the fence. On one side of the fence lies Science, the monolithic framework that enslaves its method to a grand purpose--knowledge of reality. On the other lies Humanism, a far less easily defined area about which I would hesitate to use the word framework, but through which one meets a no-less-grandiose focus--knowledge of the human. Why then does it seem natural to foster storytelling on the humanistic side of the fence? Or, alternatively, one can ask about the "why not" of narrative in the sciences.Narrative is storytelling; and stories are about heroes; and heroes conduct their actions in a place through a time. So these three building blocks-- [End Page 59] hero, time, and place--point to a pattern of knowledge that, it seems obvious, cannot, and definitely should not, belong to science in its idealized form. There is, of course, a stronger thesis deriving from the intricacies in (post?)modern discussions: that even the exact and natural sciences use narrative while still remaining sciences. This idea--that science does countenance narrative and, indeed, may even use it beneficially--thereby becomes forceful, since science, with its universalistic airs, pretends to ignore heroes in specific times and places.What of the social sciences? Their claim to science is based on that same universalistic end coupled with an attempt to develop a methodology to fit that end. The rub lies in the subject matter of the social sciences, the human being and society. A strictly positivistic view of such subject matter, or even a generally scientific one, must abstract from any and all "humanistic" traits of the human being and society and objectively treat them on a par with any other "neutral" (some might say, even material) object of research. My weak thesis merely claims that such abstraction is inherently impossible and, furthermore, that an attempt at such abstraction waylays the ultimate end of these "sciences." 2 Yet, such a thesis must contribute more than it eliminates. If the social sciences cannot live up to the original scientific ideal of one side of the fence, and if their product can be valued as more than (or at least different from) a mere story on the other side, a more fruitful characterization than just "sitting on the fence" is called for. It is here that narrative makes its essential contribution: narrative is that pattern of knowledge which can encompass the social sciences, given their necessary turn to the human being. Looked at from the receiving end, the social sciences have no option but to turn to narrative in order to buttress their scientific ideal of explanation. The phenomena they claim to explain are human and social phenomena and, as such, cannot be distanced from narrative. 3I shall try to illustrate my... (shrink)

This paper analyzes the historical and cultural genealogy of the presumed separation between ethics and economic theory, taking publicly supported care for children of working mothers (or parents) as a case that illuminates problems for thinking about gender justice that arise because of these disciplinary boundaries and the particular concept of “the human individual” that is implicit in them. Care for children of working mothers is an issue that has been important in the West since the inception of “second wave” (...) feminism. However, I argue that the global expectation that women are responsible for care of small children, coupled with the reality that small children really must have caregivers, makes this issue pertinent to women everywhere, and it has lately been recognized as an issue for development and global justice. Predominant political philosophies and neoclassical economics have a common philosophical root in abstract individualist method. I argue that this has made possible a claim of intellectual respectability for neo-liberal politics that resists feminist and postcolonial critique, even though these critiques show its inability to deal with matters, such as the need for child care, that have moral issues inextricably involved in them. The economy of rationalindividual self-interest has so far only generated child care with a very large component of exploitation of caregivers. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the historical and cultural genealogy of the presumed separation between ethics and economic theory, taking publicly supported care for children of working mothers (or parents) as a case that illuminates problems for thinking about gender justice that arise because of these disciplinary boundaries and the particular concept of “the human individual” that is implicit in them. Care for children of working mothers is an issue that has been important in the West since the inception of “second wave” (...) feminism. However, I argue that the global expectation that women are responsible for care of small children, coupled with the reality that small children really must have caregivers, makes this issue pertinent to women everywhere, and it has lately been recognized as an issue for development and global justice. Predominant political philosophies and neoclassical economics have a common philosophical root in abstract individualist method. I argue that this has made possible a claim of intellectual respectability for neo-liberal politics that resists feminist and postcolonial critique, even though these critiques show its inability to deal with matters, such as the need for child care, that have moral issues inextricably involved in them. The economy of rationalindividual self-interest has so far only generated child care with a very large component of exploitation of caregivers. (shrink)

This article traces the historical co-evolution of microbiology, bacteriology, and virology, framed within industrial and agricultural contexts, as well as their role in colonial and national history between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. The epistemology of germ theory, coupled with the economic interests of European colonies, has shaped the understanding of human-microbial relationships in a reductionist way. We explore a brief history of the medical and biological sciences, focusing on microbes and (...) the difficulty of implementing germ theory outside of biology laboratories. Furthermore, we highlight the work of Lynn Margulis, who conceptualized microbes within their ecological contexts. Such research shows the active role microbes play in handling life-sustaining biological and biochemical processes. We outline how the industrial and technological advancements of the last two centuries not only impacted almost all human societies, but also changed the world on microbial, biological, and geological levels. The narration of these histories is a complex task, and depends on how national, international, and intergovernmental institutions (such as the World Health Organization) conceive of the selective environmental pressures exerted by industry and biotechnological companies. (shrink)

Recent writers in the libertarian tradition have suggested a natural affinity between hermeneutics and libertarian politics. This case is not persuasive. We look at two different ways the link has been attempted. In one, markets themselves are seen as constituting a hermeneutic conversation of sorts. A second approach uses hermeneutics to underpin the traditional liberal confinement of the state to setting the rules of the game—to matters of the right as opposed to the good. But the conception of the self (...) that emerges from hermeneutic thought leads to a communitarian rather than a liberal politics. (shrink)

Mirrors for princes, in general, give advices to the rulers about the subtleties of political art. Another aim of these books is to define and explain the administration of the state and the duties of rulers based on experience. In consequence of this they reflect the practical ethics of the period in which they were written. As such, they resemble practical handbooks written for rulers. Another point regarding the mirrors for princes works in which the political understanding of (...) the era can be observed is that they generally use sacred texts in order to prove the political legitimacy or invalidity of the power, as well as the rightfulness or the unlawfulness of the claims to the throne. Evidences from the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth literature was almost always used to support such advocated opinions. In fact, during the Middle Ages when religion and politics were considered coupled, it was unthinkable that religious elements should not be included in the works of state administration. The important point here is that the verses and ḥadīths were sometimes removed from their contexts and interpreted and explained in a way to support the ideology of the author or the ruler whom the author presented his work. In this study, we will try to reveal the subjects in which the verses and ḥadīths used in the mirrors for princes, which is a genre that has emerged within the Islamic culture and civilization. Thus, we aim to prepare a background for the future studies, which will focus on a specific verse or ḥadīth.Summary: The first political splits in Islamic history occurred immediately after the death of prophet Muḥammad. These differences were resolved by the agreement of the majority of Muslims on Abu Bakr's name. Until the second half of the rule of the third caliph ʿUthmān, Muslims came together around the unifying power of the idea of conquest. Nevertheless, substantially as a result of economically based problems the period of tranquility in Islamic society came to an end and was replaced by disputes. Disputes turned into conflict and ultimately seperation fused with the massacre of ʿUthmān in the capital Medina turned into a big fire with the Battles of the Camel and Ṣiffīn, the emergence of Khārijīs, the formation of the Shia and the deepening of the intellectual divisions after the all of these. Islamic history has witnessed a clash of different religious views and beliefs. along with deepening of intellectual disagreements as a result of political debatesIn the Islamic political thought, especially the first two centuries process was formed around the views of the jurists, muḥaddiths and theologians. The first sources used by those who tried to justify their opinion in the differences of opinion experienced during this period were the Qurʾān and ḥadīth literature which Muslims accepted as the determining factor in all their acts. The views based on the Qur'an and the hadiths, which are the two main sources of Islamic religion, had been used to influence the people, legitimize the actions and refute the claims of the opponents. On the other hand the sort who gave direction to political thought changed and political thought adhered a new path with Turks and Persians served as bureaucrats and soldiers and took an active position in the state. Especially Persians carried the culture of advice to Islamic thought, which is the product of both Greek and Hind civilization. Such books had brought in the İslamic society with translation movements began in the Umayyad period and peaked with the Bayt al-Ḥikma in the Abbasid period. Together with these books, the ideas of these civilizations on ideal state administration, politics and morality were recognized by Muslim scholars.These type of works, which are famous in terms of Islamic thought as mirrors for princes, have been written by Muslim scholars since the middle of the eighth century. Mirrors for princes are political, moral and religious content books that gives the rulers practical advice to maintain their power in accordance with the religious orders and prohibitions, and to the consent of Allāh’s who grant them this authority and people which appointed for their administration. Mirrors for princes are mostly theoretical books since they are mostly focused on what should be. In addition, since they are written for names that currently hold power, they are centered on how the rulers can maintain and increase their power and with which practices the state will maintain its existence for a longer period. The basic point of political thought and political interpretation are concepts and definitions. When the concept meaning of a word is mentioned, it is generally considered that there is a general definition. However, the concepts reflect the meaning that the user assigns to him in the context of his thoughts, perceptions, criticisms, explanations and analyzes. Concepts such as fair, honest, brave, hero, beautiful, rich, good and clean express what the person imposes on the meaning. In other words, everyone’s experience determines the content of the concept so far. The meaning of the concepts varies with the age and its user of that concept. Even concepts such as justice, merit and consultation can change meaning in different periods and geographies. The concepts, which are often used to facilitate understanding, are sometimes used to judge, to mold or mislead the interlocutor. In this context, it is imperative to enter the mind of the user in order to make concept analysis.In Islamic civilization, the principles of management are explained with concepts. The idiosyncrasies that Muslims expect from an ideal ruler are defined as justice, consultation, merit, trust and legitimacy and a broad corpus has been written about the concepts related to the administration, especially those mentioned. One type of this corpus is mirrors for princes.In Islamic history, there are many Mirrors for princes who are written in different time periods by names coming from different geographies and different backgrounds. Although the advice given in Mirrors for princes indicate a great similarity to each other, the preferred arguments and examples in the foundation of the counsel are different. While the persons in active politics mostly based their opinions on political arguments, scholars with scientific tradition supported their advices with religious arguments.Verses are the leading religious elements highlighted in Mirrors for princes. While explaining the concepts and emphasizing the importance of the advices, many verses have been exploited. Some verses are used only by one author, while some verses are the subject of their work by many authors. In the same way, ḥadīths and the sentences accepted as ḥadīths were also used to reinforce the emphasis and meaning. At this point, sometimes the context of the verses and ḥadīths were not taken care of. In this study, we aim to address the use of religious elements.In the literature, different opinions have emerged about who is ülü’l-emr and the limits of obedience to ülü’l-emr that used describe the names of senior executives and leaders of society. The reason for the difference is that each sect or religious school provides an interpretation on the basis of grounding its own views in explaining the verse. Justice is the most emphasized concept among the advices given to the rulers in mirrors for princes. Justice, which is shown as the most important feature of a sovereign, has been regarded as extremely important for the state to existences until the Doomsday. In addition, justice has been described as the most important condition for the maintenance of the state/sovereign authority. Consultation was important to make the right decision.Verses and ḥadīths were used in the explanations about the personal characteristics of the sovereign. Some features such as being compassionate, keeping promise, controlling anger, patience, honesty, blessing, extravagance, self-esteem, break a promise, revoke a promise and arrogance have become the subject of politics. When the mirrors for princes are considered as a whole, it is seen that religion and state are considered as inseparable twin brothers, taken one step further the understanding that accepts religion and the world as brothers especially is a product of the old Persian tradition. In this understanding, religion was accepted as the root and was given the duty of its patronage to political authority. It is seen that in the Mirrors for princes verses and ḥadīths hold a significant amount. As the reason for this can be said that along with religion takes place on the basis of morality, the authors of the Mirrors for princes, which put deep meanings on the relationship between religion and the state in the period that we are dealing with, consider both institutions to be complementary and integrative. (shrink)