The objective of my comments is to draw attention to the complex relationship between the juridico-political model of sovereignty and disciplinary power in Foucault's work. I suggest that Elden's reading of Foucault and Shakespeare opens up new ways to understand contemporary forms of governmentality through a genealogy of political ceremony and theatricality. More specifically, my comments seek to show that an examination of the ceremoniality of coup d'État in connection with what Foucault calls the “democratization of sovereignty” is (...) potentially fruitful for examining modern forms of the government of civil society and counter-conduct. (shrink)

In Law's Empire, Ronald Dworkin advances two incompatible versions of law as integrity. On the strong thesis, political integrity understood as coherence in fundamental moral principles constitutes an overriding constraint on justice, fairness and due process. On the weak thesis, political integrity, while a value, is not to be privileged over justice, fairness, and due process, but to be weighed along with them. I argue that the weak thesis is superior on both of Dworkin's criteria: fit and justifiability. However, the (...) weak thesis must be amended to allow for coherence in policies as well as in principles: the social consequences of legal decisions must be taken into account. (shrink)

The second part of this publication deals with 1. 17-36 in the unpublished fragment (B), which without doubt form the most original part of the law. For it was not only a question of creating an obstacle to a coup d'État that that would overturn a genuine democracy (represented by a boule and prytaneia of Athenian type, whose members were chosen by lot among the Eretrians), but also of henceforth reestablishing this constitution if a tyranny or oligarchy — (...) interesting association — was imposed by violence. Each citizen was invited to take up arms spontaneously (this clause offered a remarkable dialectical form, a semi-passive participation of Northwestern origin). An eventuality is envisaged of the People being no longer in control of the civic centre, in particular the zone of the boukuterion designated there probably by the term Agoraion (= Metroon at Athens?), or even of them being kept outside the town : in this case the democratie elements should regroup in some part of the territory, a tactic well attested in Greece and even Eretria (the role of the maritime fortress of Porthmos) in order to retake the power. Lastly, sanctions are envisaged against citizens who had not served the cause of the People, while its defenders would be rewarded by the grant of lands and goods belonging to those who had been guilty. A considerable conduding section reviews the principal problems posed by this document : the date, circumstances of its promulgation, place(s) it was exhibited, identity of the legislator, and possible juridical and/or philosophical models. Today it seems certain that the law (necessarily before 336) has to be related to the liberation of Eretria in the autumn of 341, a relatively well documented event. As is a priore probable, an influence by Athenian legislation can be detected in the first part of the text. But a comparison with the celebrated law proposed by Eucrates of Piraeus in 337/6 shows that the Attic model would not account for ail its particularities. The Eretrian law — which is, moreover, the oldest of its kind to have survived on stone — appears radier to be the fruit of an unhappy political experience undergone in the recent past. (shrink)

Everyone, even when asserting unchallengeable authority from God or Science, thinks in language, in words and phrases, in expressions of moral, social and political impact, fighting words and words with and over which we fight. However, debates among the educated can be irrelevant elsewhere, ineffective against the highly motivated whose dogma instructs and guides them, their voting and their arming. The degeneration of “democracy” to “tyranny” such as Plato’s Republic postulated threatens in some lands “of the free,” while in others (...) it seems inexorably in progress. Today “democracy,” republic,” “liberty/freedom,” “justice,” “law and order” are adduced by their actual enemies to complement “nationalism,” “patriotism,” and frightening “empire.” Extremists on both sides decry “Tyranny!” each in fact seeking authoritarian power. All of which have instructive ancient precedents: in the History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides offers horrific accounts of ancient nation-states “long ago and far away,” more or less democratic, that abandoned common sense, moral sense, and with them regard for value words and truth itself. In the early 2020s CE many persons and governments have done little better during the still lingering pandemic. A second horror is prompted by Thucydides’ report of civil war on Corcyra, telling how faction spawned riots, coups d’état, and outright civil war. The twenty-first-century media are uniquely potent, yet mechanics of seduction are timeless. Likewise techniques for winning true believers and votes, as illustrated by passages in Mein Kampf on the language of propaganda, its production and reception. Our hope is therefore Education for a New Era to help students to discover pitfalls of media(ted) “information,” to achieve independent critical thinking at levels of basic language use and foundations of argument. Besides recognizing mis- and disinformation as harmful, they must learn themselves to judge thoughtless use, cynical abuse, or, worse yet, brazen disdain of vocabulary indicating moral/ethical value. Scientists have key roles in this drama; humanists larger ones yet. (shrink)

After the coup d’état in 2012, the Malian state experienced progressive decomposition in terms of loss of territorial integrity as well as in the functioning of its institutions. Against this backdrop, this article examines life histories of a former student generation whose members were actively involved in the protest movement of 1980. At the time they fought for student rights and democratization under a military junta, but were not able to induce the desired change. Today they portray themselves as (...) committed patriots for whom the state serves as an ongoing point of reference in their identity constructions. Bringing together higher education, protest movement and state decline, I argue that their narratives not only reveal how damaged identities and political visions are narratively repaired, but also, on a symbolic level, their damaged country as well. (shrink)

‘Abdallāh b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Nāṣir the son of ‘Abd al-Rahmān III is one of the figures who have remained unnoticed both in classical sources and in contemporary studies. Among the main objectives of this research are to compile and collect information about his life, about whom most of the historical sources of al-Andalus give little or no information. According to historical sources, ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān opposed the appointment of his brother al-Hakam II as the heir apparent and was alleged (...) to have masterminded a coup d'état together with some prominent Shāfiʿi scholars of the time, therefore he was arrested at a date close to the Eid al-Adha of 338/950 or 339/951, and then was executed by his very father. However, was this short and seemingly biased narrative really a preparation for a coup d'état or a conspiracy against ‘Abdallāh and his proponents? Why did ‘Abd al-Rahmān not hesitate to make such a sad decision about his own son? So, within the framework of these and similar questions, to reveal the details of the event of ‘Abd al-Rahmān's disappearance by his father and the psychosocial reasons behind it in the light of the current data are among the aims of the research. (shrink)

This research examines the most important historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and religious factors before, during, and after the reign of Communism in Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 2021 and their effect on the extreme increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, in the present-day Czech Republic. It devotes special attention to the role of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii) and the changing policies of the Holy See vis-à-vis this Church, examining these policies' impact on the continuing (...) decline of Roman Catholicism in the Czech Republic after the collapse of Communism. The article also deals with Pope Pius XII's Secret Mandates of 1948-1950, the Second Vatican Council, and the Holy See's Ostpolitik. Scholars, who previously relied only on the views of the Czechs, blame the unprecedented drop in Christianity, the near-total destruction of the Catholic Church, and the rise in atheism on the Czechoslovak communist government's four decades of totalitarianism. Although the increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity were substantial during the era of Communism from 1948 to 1989, our data indicate that the decline in Christianity, particularly the historically predominating Roman Catholicism, did not commence with the 1948 communist coup d’état but traces its origins to the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the conclusion of WWI and the establishment of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918. What's more, this research shows that the most significant and unprecedented steep deterioration of the Christian Faith, namely Roman Catholicism, did not occur during the era of Communism but only after the Czechoslovak communist government collapsed in 1989. This massive decay did not happen even during the most extraordinary communist persecution of the Catholic Church during the era of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. This research further finds that the Holy See's ill-advised policies and systematic, sustained, and prevalent failures in leadership, guidance, and teachings are responsible for the near destruction of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the end destruction of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii), in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the fall of Communism. These failures furthermore contributed to the Czech Republic, the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia that once were in the center of Christendom, degenerating into the most atheist country in Europe and the world today. (shrink)

The scene takes place in O'Higgins Park, in Santiago, Chile, on 1 October 1995. Some women have just taken their place on the stage and the enthusiastic audience is applauding, the women have started singing accompanied by a guitar, but they cannot be heard, for the audience is still applauding. One of the women gets up. Like the others, she is wearing a white blouse and a long black skirt, she is old and her hair is grey. She moves to (...) the front of the stage, chooses her place and stops, her eyes search the horizon but do not wander aimlessly, her eyes are fixed somewhere between the here and the hereafter. When she finds what she is looking for, she raises her right hand to wave a white handkerchief, and the dance begins. The audience, suddenly attentive, watches. And what do they see? Not the woman alone on the stage, but the empty space which she traces. The empty space disturbs us, as Chilean spectators, because the cueca, the national folklore dance, is danced by two people, or it is not danced at all. The invisible other is invoked by this woman's every gesture and we do not smile when faced with the absence of her man because we have a premonition that she is not pretending, we have a premonition that she can see him. The image of women dancing alone has become one of the symbols of the struggle of the families of the disappeared under the dictatorship of General Pinochet. The families are commemorating, on 1 October 1995, the twentieth anniversary of their organization into an association in 1975. The term “the disappeared” has progressively become accepted to indicate the victims of a novel, coercive practice in Chile, since the coup d’état on 11 September 1973. The forced disappearance of people differs from political assassination, as Amnesty International never ceases to indicate in the various reports which it commissions on them. In the Chilean case, this speciality is in part due to the security system which has taken on the responsibility of destroying all organized opposition to the military dictatorship: the DINA, the intelligence service created by the military junta, which is only answerable for its actions to the junta. More fundamentally, the special character of disappearance is due to the invisibility of the victim's body and to the doubt that this invisibility arouses within the victim's family circle: the disappeared is not identified as dead because his death is never certified, on the other hand his sudden and unexplained absence indicates that he is a person in danger and that this danger extends to all those who notice his absence. (shrink)

Lors de la révolte sociale de 2019, de nombreux slogans ont été écrits sur les murs de Santiago et d’autres villes du Chili. Un malaise collectif s’y inscrivait qui répondait aux conditions générées il y a près de cinquante ans, lorsqu’un coup d’État militaire est venu secouer notre pays. Parmi beaucoup d’autres, le slogan « nous avons perdu la peur » était éloquent.

Is there a connection between power struggles and urban context? How the urban space used for the symbolic manifestation of power and social control? How urban space becomes the site of conflict and resistance? How urban nodes like squares became political apparatus in social demonstrations and revolutions? How do specific squares become symbols of revolutions? This thesis investigated these questions by viewing the city as a place formed by politics, which built upon the central concept of Meydan (Public Square), as (...) the "political order in the ideogram of the city". Focusing on public squares, it traces their sociopolitical transformations as well as their role in instigating social transformations through examples that span from the pre-modern times to the present. As the embodiment of the square in the image of the city, the historical, social and theological concept of Meydan- a term, which has mostly applied, for Iranian public squares has been studied. The Empty Locus of Power rereads squares as peculiar urban forms and representations of political ideas, when the squares of the city has become the stage for the process of politicizing, de-politicizing or neutralizing space. This thesis tries to analyze the square beyond an architectural element in the city, but weaves this blank slate, with its contemporary socio political atmosphere as a new paradigm. This interpretation, suggested the idea of Meydan as the core of the projects on the city, which historically exposed in formalization of theological ideologies. Regarding this issue, urban space of traditional Iranian cities introduced as the medium through which theological ideologies and political sovereignty took place. In pursuing such analyses, this research engages with issues ranging from details of political histories of the case studies in public squares to the master plan of the city of VIII Tehran. During the recent century, various political events and social demonstrations have been staged in Tehran as Middle Eastern Capital, which emphasize the further discussions for analyzing the relationship between socio-political dimensions of city and its urban projects that ultimately led to occupy the city and reclaim the public spaces in Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. In this sense, analyzing the major political events in modern Tehran as a city loaded with politics will lead to trace the processes of its spatial transformation. In this regard, the thesis examines the relationship between affordances of public spaces, their histories, and the emergence of social events and movements. Building on this theoretical framework, this thesis stresses on the transformative dynamism of autocratic modernization, which motivate or shape a creative tension in the form of the city. The emergence of representative pseudo political public space for demonstration of power and national identity during the First Pahlavi Era (1925-41), reoccupation of public spaces by social movements and political parties during the nationalization of Iranian oil movement till 1953 Iranian coup d'etat will be the second part and socio- political arrangement of capital as ‘Metropolis of Tomorrow' and its urban transformation during the second Pahlavi Era (1941-79) till Islamic Revolution have been examined. Analysis suggests that spatial transformations and modernization politics have led to or facilitated (directly or indirectly and, or inadvertently) political changes. Building on the foundation of knowledge established in this research, the final part of research focuses on the centrality of squares in recent social protests. Using Middle East sociologist, Asef Bayat's theory of ‘Spatialities of discontent', the final chapter explores the spatial dimension of political spaces of the city and aims to theorize the necessity of urban social movements to approach democratic space in a global context. (shrink)

Overcoming corruption and authoritarian government in developing countries is hampered by global institutional arrangements. In particular, international borrowing and resource privileges, which entitle those exercising power in a country to borrow in its name and to effect legally valid transfers of ownership rights in its resources, can be obstacles to achieving democracy. These international conventions greatly increase the incentives toward attempts at coups d'état, especially in countries with a large resource sector. In exploring how this problem might be highlighted (...) and addressed, it is essential to understand that affluent societies have a great interest in upholding the prevailing institutional arrangements: Their banks benefit from their international lending and, far more importantly, their firms and people benefit greatly from cheap resource supplies. Institutional reform is more likely, then, to come from the developing countries.Thus, fledgling democracies may be able to improve their stability through constitutional amendments that bar future unconstitutional governments from borrowing in the country's name and from conferring ownership rights in its public property. Such amendments would render insecure the claims of those who lend to, or buy from, dictators, thus reducing the rewards of coups d'état. This strategy might be resisted by the more affluent societies, but such resistance could perhaps be overcome if many developing countries pursued the proposed strategy together, and if some moral support emerged among the citizenries of affluent societies. (shrink)

Dans la péninsule italienne, à une quarantaine d’années de guerres incessantes fait suite, à partir de 1494, une longue période de paix relative jusqu’à la fin du xviiie siècle. Florence, Venise et Rome sont alors les trois espaces culturels et politiques où naissent les réflexions les plus importantes – et les plus « européennes » – sur la question de la guerre et sur le déploiement d’un « après-guerre ». Après la pensée florentine qui articule politique de conquête et nécessité (...) de la conservation en temps de guerre, « l’après-guerre»s’inscrit dans une tension potentielle, sinon permanente, entre l’impossibilité de la paix et l’acceptation de la domination politico-militaire. La compréhension des effets de cette situation peut passer par l’éloge de la neutralité et de la pacification des rapports de force, notamment dans la pensée vénitienne. Dans cette perspective, la paix constitue un cadre à la fois imposé et en mouvement. Le questionnement concerne du coup ce que la guerre transmet à l’après-guerre. Puisque la guerre est une expérience radicale, une expérience de la limite, elle est du coup porteuse d’un savoir qui acquiert une nécessité : de ce fait, ce savoir continue d’informer la réflexion, même quand la conjoncture s’est modifiée du tout au tout. Ainsi, même lorsqu’on fait passer les raisons de la conservation avant celles de la conquête, on ne remplace pas la guerre par la paix. On a cessé de penser qu’après la guerre était la paix : bien au contraire, on a placé la guerre au principe de la paix. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies.1.1 (2001) 129-130 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng.Edited by Sallie B. King and Paul O.Ingram. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999. Fred Streng was a close friend of mine. We were born the same year, 1933, and shared many interests. The last time (...) I saw him was in 1992, in Boston.We both took part in the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies' fourth Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Conference, we both also delivered sermons at Boston University's chapel, and both of us gave commemorative addresses at a memorial service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was in exile at the time, fleeing from the oppression of the Thai National Peacekeeping Council, which had staged a coup d'etat the year before. Fred offered sincere concern for my well-being and safety, and he encouraged me, when it was most needed, to complete my work on socially engaged Buddhism. Not long after that, I received the tragic news that Fred had died of cancer at age sixty.I've always admired Fred Streng's positive disposition. His metta karuna,.oving and compassionate way, deeply shone through him. And his religious views, though different from mine, were always captivating. Fred was a Christian, yet his attitude and works greatly benefited a Theravada Buddhist like me. I especially learned from his Emptiness: AStudy in Religious Meaning.1974) and the textbook series, "Understanding Religious Life," that he edited.We are in need of different ways of perceiving and understanding reality, ways in which the brain and mind/heart are able to unite as one. In his summary of Dr. Streng's thinking, Paul Ingram summarizes his commitment to interreligious dialogue as a path in itself: [H]e was convinced that religious knowledge and authentic living at their deepest level are dependent upon seeking out alternative forms of religious experience, comparing them, and entering into dialogue with them. Interreligious dialogue, he believed, may involve (1) a mystical sense of unity underlying the diversity of humanity's ways of being religious, (2) the perception that the religious ways of humanity are alternative or complementary means of ultimate transformation, (3) a focus on enriching one's personal faith and participation in one's own religious tradition, or (4) a combination of all three of [End Page 129] the above. Fred also developed these themes further in an essay entitled "Selfhood without Selfishness: Buddhist and Christian Approaches to Authentic Living" (pp. xiv-xv). Reading The Sound of Liberating Truth,.he new collection of writings in Frederick Streng's honor edited by Sallie King and Paul Ingram, evokes fond memories of this kayanamittata(spiritual friend). The book's title is not just appealing and meaningful, it was the "life koan" that Fred grappled with during his final years: what is the sound of liberating truth? Religions can be more harmful and corrupting than even Marx thought. But the highest intention of religions remains unsurpassed--the ultimate transformation from selfishness to selflessness. In a genuine way, this book is a vehicle for helping us realize this noble outcome.I am truly impressed by the wide range of ideas I have picked up reading this volume. In addition to the important contributions by the book's two editors, there are thought-provoking articles by David Chappell and Winston King on "Interreligious Dialogue," by Bonnie Thurston and Paula Cooey on "Nature and Ecology," by Sallie King and John Keenan on "Social and Political Issues of Liberation," and by Tom Kasulis and Ruben Habito on "Ultimate Transformation or Liberation." In each of these, there are challenging dialogues and good responses, too. The Buddhist and Christian epilogues by Taitetsu Unno and John Cobb, respectively, crown all the other dialogues in depth and thoughtfulness.This volume is a well-deserved tribute to Frederick J. Streng, whose memory will be with his many friends--Buddhists, Christians, and so many others... (shrink)

Walter Bagehot , the notable Victorian journalist, economist, and historian, was a prolific author of both books and magazine articles. Along with Matthew Arnold he was one of the most lucid and discerning critics of that time. He contributed to many journal articles, notably to the Prospective and National Reviews and The Economist , with a lively and witty style. Widely considered to be a great authority on banking and finance, Bagehot was consulted by Chancellors of the Exchequer of both (...) parties. His outlook, although never hostile to the working classes or trade unions, was openly sympathetic to the capitalist employers - a group that had never before such a brilliant spokesman. His most enduring publications, The English Constitution and Lombard Street are both republished here, as are his Letters on the French Coup D'Etat, Literary Studies, and Physics and Politics. (shrink)

L’invention de la ménopause au xixe siècle puis celle de l’andropause dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle ont eu pour effet d’accroître la surveillance des médecins sur les corps féminins et masculins vieillissants et, plus spécialement, sur la sexualité de cette période de la vie. Or, si ce coup d’état médical a si bien réussi, c’est qu’il a tout autant bénéficié du soutien très actif des femmes que de l’incapacité des hommes à lui résister. C’est aussi qu’il s’inscrivait (...) dans le prolongement de très anciennes pratiques sociales qu’il légitimait. Et qu’on ne s’y trompe pas. Loin de se desserrer, l’étau s’est définitivement refermé. En effet, les hommes, qui ont longtemps tenté d’échapper maladroitement à cette surveillance, ont, aujourd’hui, fini par s’y soumettre, acceptant, de fait, tout le discours silencieux sur les défaillances de leur puissance virile qu’elle suppose. (shrink)

L’invention de la ménopause au xixe siècle puis celle de l’andropause dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle ont eu pour effet d’accroître la surveillance des médecins sur les corps féminins et masculins vieillissants et, plus spécialement, sur la sexualité de cette période de la vie. Or, si ce coup d’état médical a si bien réussi, c’est qu’il a tout autant bénéficié du soutien très actif des femmes que de l’incapacité des hommes à lui résister. C’est aussi qu’il s’inscrivait (...) dans le prolongement de très anciennes pratiques sociales qu’il légitimait. Et qu’on ne s’y trompe pas. Loin de se desserrer, l’étau s’est définitivement refermé. En effet, les hommes, qui ont longtemps tenté d’échapper maladroitement à cette surveillance, ont, aujourd’hui, fini par s’y soumettre, acceptant, de fait, tout le discours silencieux sur les défaillances de leur puissance virile qu’elle suppose. (shrink)

« No pasaran » (ils ne passeront pas). Devant les micros del Ministerio de Gobernacion, la députée communiste Dolorès Ibarruri officialise le mot d’ordre destiné à unir les forces de gauche contre les rebelles fascistes. En ce 19 juillet 1936, au lendemain du coup d’Etat nationaliste, les défenseurs de la démocratie viennent de trouver leur cri de ralliement ; une femme, qui devient un mythe, incarne la lutte. Les facettes de cette construction imaginaire se dévoilent aisément : voix du (...) peup.. (shrink)

This text is an edited version of my curatorial essay for `The More Things Change...', the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival. I introduce it here with some background on the political flux since the most recent coup d'etat, from which Thailand's political system is yet to recover. I outline two key themes that emerged in BEFF 5's Thai programmes. The first concerns the cycles — `historical, biological and psycho-social' — that find expression in the country's repetitive political narrative. The (...) second concerns the poetics of reproduction in Thailand, an historical, economic and spiritual complex that connects everyday life and folk culture with sovereign and national symbolism. This article is not a comprehensive engagement with the films in BEFF 5, but rather seeks to establish a context in which non-mainstream Thai visual culture might be better understood. I also offer some reflections on the relationship between film and contemporary art in Thailand. (shrink)

« No pasaran » (ils ne passeront pas). Devant les micros del Ministerio de Gobernacion, la députée communiste Dolorès Ibarruri officialise le mot d’ordre destiné à unir les forces de gauche contre les rebelles fascistes. En ce 19 juillet 1936, au lendemain du coup d’Etat nationaliste, les défenseurs de la démocratie viennent de trouver leur cri de ralliement ; une femme, qui devient un mythe, incarne la lutte. Les facettes de cette construction imaginaire se dévoilent aisément : voix du (...) peup... (shrink)

Modern democracy is impossible without political parties. They are necessary in the process of the construction of the political class and building of relations between politicians and ‘ordinary people’. So, in Poland in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries the significance of parties is also very important. Their history is older than the history of the reborn Poland. Especially in Galicia, an autonomous province of the Hapsburg empire, we can see the activities of many politicians. A part of them in (...) 1895 declared the birth of the Popular Party which is a constant element of the Polish political scene. The second traditional current is the socialistic movement, which is also always legally active in Poland. These two camps represent, in simplification, the ‘two Polands’—the first more traditional, conservative and provincial, and the second more progressive, ‘European’ and urban. Actually, in the typical consciousness of a Polish citizen, the political representation of the ‘black’ country is the party Law and Justice of Jarosław Kaczyński, and the ‘red’ country admires the Citizen Platform with Donald Tusk as a leader. But probably the idea of a twoparty system, like in the Anglo-Saxon world, is still very distant to reality, because in the European continent, the tradition of pluralism in a policentric version is still very significant. In Poland, even in the period of the ‘real socialism’ this conception of the organization of political life was realized, though naturally in the specific version. There were three legal parties and the Polish United Workers’ Party (the PUWP) was the most important. From 1976, the PUWP in the light of the Constitution had the official hegemony in the Republic. It is possible to compare this situation with the period 1926–39, when, after the coup d’état by Marshal Piłsudski, the Government still won in the election and the official elite wanted to create a stable political force with a perspective of permanent rule. But we must remember that between the wars opposition always was legal. In our times of demoliberalism, this is quite normal (though under the Constitution, unconstitutional parties, for example, communist or fascist, are unacceptable); however, interesting is the fact that when you observe sine ira et studio the evolutional trend of the Polish political system, you easily find the tendency of the ‘stabilization’ of the party system in the way of legal operations. From 1997, the laws concerning political parties have changed the possibilities of the conquest of seats in the Seym. Actually, only the parties having 5 per cent (or 8 per cent in coalition) of votes can gain the representation in the Diet. So it is possible to claim that the little parties today are in a more complicated situation than in the first years after the ‘operation of Round Table’ in 1989. The contemporary system is maybe more stable, but less liberal. There are theoreticians who note the danger of the alienation of the political class in the situation of the renewal of the alienation of the political elite, which de facto is more connected with the state than with the society. Many theoreticians emphasize that in the future the role and the character of political structures will be profoundly different from today. Maybe they are prophets, but we can expect that the Polish political parties or ‘post-parties’ and also political structure as a whole will have many similarities with their actual equivalents, because the mentality of the Polish nation, including the politicians, is more or less enduring. (shrink)

Né du culte militaire et d’un coup d’État raté, le « chavisme » est devenu un phénomène politique. Après avoir survécu au coup d’État de 2002, il a commencé à coloniser l’État dans un processus progressif mais continu dans lequel est apparu un nouveau type de militarisme de gauche que l’on pourrait appeler le « comandantismo ». Ce régime est entré en crise avec la mort de Chavez et la chute des prix du pétrole. Avec Maduro, son successeur, (...) une tentative de réforme a connu le succès dans la lutte pour le pouvoir mais a échoué à obtenir des changements mettant fin à un désastre systémique qui a commencé il y a plus de dix ans. (shrink)

Em 24 de agosto de 1572, Paris viveu um fato sangrento em sua história: “O Massacre da Noite de São Bartolomeu”, como ficou historicamente conhecido o evento, remete ao assassinato de milhares de huguenotes, a mando da casa real francesa, nas ruas da cidade. Mais um episódio dos conflitos religiosos que dividiram a França do século XVI, o banho de sangue protestante a mando da realeza católica seria, no século seguinte, louvado pelos teóricos seiscentistas da razão de Estado. Seguindo essa (...) linha, Gabriel Naudé, na obra Considérations politiques sur les coups-d'état, elogia o golpe que motivou o massacre, defendendo-o das acusações de tirania e o glorificando como ação legítima e necessária por parte dos governantes franceses. Examinar a apologia de Naudé ao referido massacre, e nela buscar a influência da obra de Nicolau Maquiavel exercida sobre o autor, é o escopo de nosso artigo. (shrink)

The Russian Revolution is a historical milestone both politically and theoretically. Its supporters found in it the consummation of all history that preceded it and the springboard towards a new history absolved from all grievances. Its opponents saw in it a violent coup d’ etat leading to the destruction of a state, the beginning of the division of the world in two hostile camps and last but not least one of the paradigmatic examples of an almost unprecedented authoritarianism. This (...) book examines the discursive and practical battleground of the Russian Revolution, describes how it keeps living through the events, struggles, theories, and effects it prompted, and analyzes revolutionary ideas and processes in a more general vein. By taking the Russian Revolution as the prime example of revolutionary processes, the articles of this volume attempt to acknowledge the legacy of the Russian Revolution, come to terms with its failures and sketch the future of revolutionary thinking and practice in its aftermath. (shrink)

Cet article traite de deux expériences muséales portées par des entreprises, mais qui pour autant ne se présentent et ne se pensent pas comme des « musées d’entreprises ». Il s’agit du Musée EDF Electropolis à Mulhouse et de la Cité des Télécoms à Pleumeur-Bodou. Derrière se tiennent deux entreprises aux histoires assez parallèles, quoique décalées dans le temps : EDF et France Telecom , toutes deux sont des opérateurs de services publics en réseaux, avec leurs spécificités opérationnelles et, du (...) coup, patrimoniales. Devenues propriété de l’État, elles ont connu une situation de monopole avant d’être confrontées à un changement de statut et, concomitamment, à la concurrence, ce qui n’a pas manqué de renouveler la question de leur identité et de réinterroger leur soutien à des musées dont elles étaient, en partie mais pas exclusivement, le sujet.This article investigates two museums which, although established by utility companies, were not intended as corporate museums: EDF’s Electropolis museum at Mulhouse and the Cité des Télécoms at Pleumeur-Bodou. Behind these museums are two companies with a parallel though not entirely contemporaneous history: EDF and France Telecom . Both were established as public utility companies, with their own specific methods of operation, and thus formed part of the national heritage. On becoming state-owned, they effectively exercised a monopoly until the change in their status forced them into a competitive environment – which necessarily raised the issue of their identity as well as new questions on their support to museums that were partly, but not exclusively, dedicated to them. (shrink)

In December 1851, French President Louis Bonaparte – the future Emperor Napoléon III – seized power in a coup d’état , in violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution. He arrested the legislature; imprisoned, deported, or executed his political opponents; and deterred future dissent by massacring civilians in the streets.

In his Bibliographia politica Naudé reviews in about one hundred pages authors and works that have dealt with politics, from the Antiquity to the first decades of the Seventeenth Century. In few enlightened pages on the ordinary and extraordinary administration of the State, Naudé elaborates his own idea of Reason of State, including the use of an extraordinary administration in the name of the public benefit. We can find a continuity between his Bibliographia politica and his Considérations politiques sur les (...) coups d’Estat. In both his political works Naudé gives to the category of wisdom, derived from Aristotle, a new practical and political value, which goes back to authors such as Machiavelli or Cardano, Lipsius or Charron. Naudé’s political wisdom uses dissimulation and any form of justice, also against common law, to act in extraordinary administration of the State or to carry out “coups d’État.”. (shrink)

Avant de rédiger son Discours de la méthode, véritable coup d'Etat dans la pensée philosophique du XVIIe siècle, le jeune Descartes avait fait trois songes dans une nuit de novembre 1619. Le cerveau en feu de M Descartes revisite ces rêves, où le jeune philosophe entrevoit le fondement matriciel qui relie tous les êtres, et propose un quatrième songe dont il ne serait pas revenu. Nous avons voulu comprendre comment, à l'issue de cette nuit, Descartes entreprend de fonder le (...) cogito contre tous les vertiges entrevus. Un délire philosophique a décidé du destin de l'Occident, a provoqué un durcissement de la raison. Aujourd'hui, alors que la raison de la technologie et de la finance est remise en cause, que nous remettons en doute la Raison des raisons, il importe de revisiter cette vision fondamentale et d'établir un dialogue avec l'écologie intuitive des cultures autochtones : c'est le cinquième songe. (shrink)

Foucault only refers to Shakespeare in a few places in his work. He is intrigued by the figures of madness that appear in King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth. He occasionally notes the overthrow of one monarch by another, such as in Richard II or Richard III, arguing that “a part of Shakespeare's historical drama really is the drama of the coup d’État.” For Foucault, the first are illustrations of the conflict between the individual and the mechanisms of discipline. The (...) second are, however, less interesting than moments when the sovereign is replaced, not with another sovereign, but with a different, more anonymous, form of power. Yet, in his 1976 Collège de France course, Society Must Be Defended, where he treats the theme at most length, he intriguingly suggests that Shakespearean historical tragedy is “at least in terms of one of its axes, a sort of ceremony, or a rememorialization of the problems of public right.” Foucault was long fascinated by the theatre, and especially its relation to political ceremony. Drawing especially on his 1972 lectures in Paris and a related presentation in Minnesota, this paper asks how we might understand the relation between ceremony, theatre, and politics in Foucault and Shakespeare. Many of Shakespeare's plays, both histories and tragedies, thus demonstrate the importance of ritual and ceremony, a political theatre. Examining the disrupted ceremony of King Lear, the repeated ceremony of King John, the denial of ritual in Coriolanus, and the parody of the ceremonial in Henry IV, Part One opens up a range of historical, theoretical, and political questions. (shrink)

The slave route from Africa to the Americas is as old as the contact between Europe and the New World itself, and the slave route across the Sahara is older still. Hence to describe the lives of ordinary people in western Africa during the era of slavery would require an examination of the whole of African history over the past five hundred years and more. And in Africa, as in Europe and the Americas, there was tremendous change over this period (...) and extensive variation at any point in time. Life in 1807, when Britain and the United States outlawed the slave trade, was considerably different than in 1492, when Columbus first sailed to the Caribbean. Hence to give an impression of how people in Africa lived during the era of transatlantic slavery is also to understand how the lives of people changed over the course of the slave trade. In 1492, a coup d’état brought a Muslim ruler, Askia Muhammad, to the throne of the great empire of Songhay, and for the next hundred years, Songhay ruled much of West Africa. As empires have always done, Songhay's influence extended to areas beyond its military control. At this time, the slavery of Africans in the Americas was in its infancy. Yet, in 1593, a military invasion from Morocco across the Sahara destroyed Songhay, and much of the internal cohesion of western Africa came to an end, precisely when transatlantic slavery emerged as the principal means of exploiting the agricultural and mineral wealth of the Americas. The lives of ordinary people changed because of this monumental collapse of Songhay. Similarly, the changes imposed by European abolition of the slave trade after 1807, although confusing and often delayed in their impact, were also monumental. Hence the first task in considering how people lived during the slavery era is to identify the differences over time that affected both people who were forced, through slavery, to cross the Atlantic and those who remained behind in Africa. Africa in 1492 or 1593 was not the same as in 1807, any more than Europe and America were. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the extent to which ancient historical actors might be seen to have exhibited what might be described as rational motives. In particular, it examines a number of strategic interactions employed by the Athenian tyrant Hippias in his interactions of Aristogeiton, the protagonist of an unsuccessful coup d’etat. A secondary objective of this paper is to explore Hippias’ reactionary policies following his brother’s assassination, namely, whether Hippias’ choice of external allies, in the face of possible (...) exile, were irrational as suggested by some ancient authors. (shrink)

In recent months, the President and other members of his administration have openly declared their desire and intent to achieve "regime change" in Iraq. And since previous methods of ousting Saddam Hussein--economic sanctions and coups d'etat --have obviously failed, the President is seriously considering even more dramatic options, including full-scale military invasion. How should we evaluate that proposal? There are a number of important ethical questions that we must address before waging war.

Languishing in exile after Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of December 1851 shut down socialist agitation, the followers of the utopian theorist Charles Fourier turned their attention to the New World as an "asylum" where Fourierism's communal ideals might be realized. In so doing they joined a long line of utopian dreamers who saw the young United States as a promised land of free expression and social experimentation. The head of the French Fourierists, Victor Considerant, made contacts with the (...) remnant of the American Fourierist movement, toured the United States in 1853, and was thrilled by the vast open spaces of Texas. Considerant discounted the fate of another French socialist group, the disciples... (shrink)

This guest column amounts to a conversation between two of the crucial figures in the world of Soviet bloc dissidents about developments in their part of the world since the overthrow of communism there in 1989. They agree that a “creeping coup d'état” is underway, in which not only the government administrations of their countries have changed, but also their systems of governance—for the worse. “It is not,” they agree, “what the democratic opposition spent twenty-five years fighting for.” (...) Their apprehension is that, under new forms, the old authoritarian impulses are returning to East-Central Europe as well as Russia. (shrink)

This guest column amounts to a conversation between two of the most crucial Soviet bloc dissidents about developments since the 1989 overthrow of communismin their part of the world. They agree that a “creeping coup d’état” is underway in which not only the government administrations of their countries have changed but also their systems of governance—and changed for the worse. “It is not,” they agree, “what the democratic opposition spent twenty-five years fighting for.” Their apprehension is that, under new (...) forms, the old authoritarian impulses are returning to East-Central Europe as well as to Russia. (shrink)

Mauro Basaure Cet article cherche à innover dans le cadre de la controverse sur le musée de la Mémoire et des Droits de l’homme du Chili : devrait-il ou non intégrer dans sa muséographie la période antérieure au 11 septembre 1973, c’est-à-dire le contexte du coup d’État? Je défends la thèse selon laquelle le MMDH peut intégrer une dimension contextuelle sans trahir sa mission, sa vision et sa fonction, tant qu’il répond à une approche de la notion de contexte-sans-causalité. (...) Selon moi, le grand problème de la critique venant de la droite politique – qui accuse le musée de ne pas remplir sa mission pédagogique, car il décontextualise le coup d’État – est que cette critique répond à une vision causale de la notion de contexte, ce qui la conduit à des contradictions insurmontables. Si, grâce à une muséographie bien réfléchie, le concept de contextualisation non causale était mis en oeuvre avec succès, ceci n’engendrerait pas une contradiction au sein du musée mais pourrait même le favoriser. La conviction que le coup d’État et ses atrocités n’ont ni causes ni antécédents et ne peuvent en avoir renforce la mission pédagogique du MMDH. (shrink)

The African business practice of kalabuleism, like capitalism, has at the basis of its business ethics, the belief that it is not wrong to maximise profits. Any system of distribution or marketing that permits businessmen and women to maximise profits in the sale or distribution of basic goods that are in short supply is bound to aggravate the situation for an already starving people such as are to be found in Africa. The adoption of wholesale capitalism in conditions of acute (...) shortage of basic (as well as non-basic) goods, is unconducive to the invention or practice of or belief in Akan-like or Christian-like ethics. Hence, central planning with respect to the necessities of life seems to me to be necessary in many parts of the Third World; and the African attempt to revolutionalize business ethics merely by means of coup d'etats, is likely to be counter-productive. (shrink)

From its origins, cybernetics has based its desire on the concept of transverse nature, today transdisciplinary. Within its history, the breaking point is unquestionably Stafford Beer and the VMS applied in Salvador Allende's government. Chile's historical conditions and context undoubtedly allowed a series of conceptual emergencies that were not necessarily developed after the 1973 coup d'état. Beer's design, as he claims, could serve both a socialist vision and a fascist command. This tells us that the tool depends on (...) the hand of the administrator. On the other hand, good but insufficient attempts have been made in the field of biologies, such as the theory of autopoiesis and epistemological positions concerning the observer, which have not been able to add value to the VMS. The errors in the design of the VMS can be summarized as follows: confusion of interactions with relationships, confusing co-autonomy with self-organization, confusion of centrism and centralities necessarily as central and establish isomorphisms in a mathematical system aiming at conceptual homologation. As is the case with Information and Entropy. This work shows that the VMS must obligatorily migrate to a Relational Viable system, whose bases are the relations of cooperation and reciprocity based on heterarchical structures for limited or scarce material energy resources. This is the basis of the socialist design which forces the economy to reduce the production of Non-Required Variety. (shrink)

Together with the emergence of strong executive presidencies and the frequency of coups d'Etat, the single party is one of the striking features of the political development in Africa South of the Sahara since 1960.More than half the countries of the continent are presently under one-party rule. This article attempts to analyse the origins, recent developments, and perspectives in the field of African single-party states. Sameelements favourable to the emergence of this phenomenon were the colonial heritage, the precolonial tradition, and (...) the aura of legitimacy of the national liberation movements. Several techniques were usedby African leaders to impose rule by one party; distinction is made between political, legal and institutional, and authoritarian means. African leaders have relied on several justifications to rationalise the introduction of such regimes : economie development, national unity and nation-building, the absence of class-differentiation, the unanimitarian tradition, and the need to give constitutional recognition to a de facto situation. A critical analysis shows that these arguments do not, in general, withstand closer examination. The conclusion is that the single-party «ideology» serves mainly to protect the hegemony of a small and privileged political class of rulers against challenge of its position. As far as perspectives are concerned, three possibilities seem to be developing simultaneously : the Party-State, the no-party state, and the multi-party state. It is argued in a conclusion that the single-party state need not be undemocratic ; some conditions for a democratic one-party system are set forth. (shrink)

If it is true, as I have argued in an earlier essay, that discontinuity is not an unintended side-effect of our ambition to attain goals that are in line with our identity, but the result of our giving in to a sublime “why not?,” then how can we conceive of history as a process? In this essay I will explore the thesis that my notion that the discontinuities of history spring from a dehors texte squares well with an evolutionary view (...) of history. I will do so by giving an account of how Lenin and Trotsky brought off one of the primordial discontinuities of the twentieth century, the Russian Revolution. Starting with Trotsky's remark that Lenin owed his success to his “imagination,” I show that the October 1917 coup d'état was not guided by strategy or driven by ideology, but by a series of “inspired” improvisations in which the protagonists fled forward into the unknown. Trotsky describes Lenin's “intuition of action” as the fruit of his ability to take leave of the system of complexity reduction that is stored in conventions, received wisdom, and other things we take for granted. Trotsky in effect says that Lenin's improvisations were most successful when he was so completely “possessed” by his deeds that he didn't fully know what he was doing—when, that is, he was in a state of dissociation. In Lenin's inspired deeds the “latent powers of the organism” that humans have “inherited from animal ancestors” rose up, Trotsky said, and “smashed through the doors of psychic routine and—together with the highest historico-philosophical generalizations—stood up in the service of the revolution.” Acting out the dehors texte, Lenin brought about one of the metamorphoses in which humanity mutates to new—though not necessarily higher or happier—levels. The essay includes some remarks on what all this might mean for the relation between history and theory in the upcoming years. (shrink)

Publication date: 24 January 2019 Source: Author: Adewunmi James Falode On August 27, 1985, Major-General Ibrahim Babangida carried-out a coup d’etat against the then military ruler of Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari. The main reason for the putsch was the believe that the Buhari regime had no plan to return Nigeria to civilian rule. Apart from this, the country was beset with various nation-building challenges that the junta had no clear-cut answers to. Such challenges include that of corruption, ethnicity, governance (...) and religion. Babangida carried-out his coup ostensibly to return the country to civilian rule, tackle these nation-building challenges and turn Nigeria into a cohesive, functional and viable polity. To achieve these important aims and objectives, Babangida established a transition programme to return Nigeria to civilian rule and used institutional, praetorian and constitutional mechanisms to tackle the country’s nationhood challenges. This work is an analysis of the programmes, measures and initiatives that the Babangida regime used to tackle Nigeria’s nation-building challenges and prepare the country for eventual return to civilian rule. (shrink)

Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu [Spring and Autumn of the House of Lü] appeared on the scene in 239 B.C. This was the latter part of the Warring States period. Our country's transition from slavery to feudalism had already been basically completed, but chaotic wars of secession among the feudal princes still occurred. Remnant forces of the slave system were still quite strong, and the restoration-counterrestoration struggle between the declining slave-owning class and the newly emerging landlord class was proceeding violently. Lü Pu-wei was (...) a careerist and plotter of the declining slave-owning class and a representative of the Confucians. In response to the needs of the slave-owning class's counterrevolutionary restoration, Lü adopted the tactic of "attacking the mind." He sneaked into the government of the newly emerging landlord class in the state of Ch'in and played the role of an ardent vanguard for restoration. This big commercial slave owner, who had originally run around among Ch'in, Chao, and other states, had amassed thousands of gold pieces at home and possessed more than ten thousand slaves. He played around with political conspiracies and became chancellor of the state of Ch'in. Before King Ying Cheng of Ch'in personally took power in 238 B.C., political power fell for a time into Lü's hands. Lü Pu-wei worked in collusion with Lao Ai, a eunuch he sponsored, and joined the industrial and commercial slave owners and the aristocratic slave owners to form a frenzied restorationist force. On the one hand, they formed factions to strengthen private interests, expanded their power, and prepared for an armed coup d'état. On the other hand, they took in riff-raff [literally, people who had surrendered and rebelled], assembled Confucian scholars, set to work on ideology, and grandly created public opinion for the restoration of the slave system. At that time, a reactionary adverse current favoring the restoration of the slave system hung over the state of Ch'in. Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu, which was compiled under Lü's direction by his retainers, was the product of this adverse current. (shrink)

The movement for ‘military preparedness’ in America and Britain gained tremendous momentum at the turn of the century. It assimilated the cult of manliness — the key public virtue, which allowed a person to claim possession of himself and a nation to reclaim possession of itself. An army was the means of marshalling a mass of people for regeneration. The symbol of a nation's preparedness to take control of its own soul was the readiness to bear arms. Although this movement (...) originated in the middle-class, Protestant cultures of the USA and England, its core ideas were adopted by many political movements. Affected by these ideas, as well as the formation of the Protestant Ulster Volunteers in 1913, a movement to reclaim Irish independence through the mass bearing of arms began in South and West Ireland in autumn 1914. Women were excluded from these Volunteer companies, but set up their own organization, Cumann na mBan, as an auxiliary to the men's. The Easter Rising in 1916 owed as much to older ideas of the coup d'état as new ideas of mass mobilization, but subsequent history recreated that Rising as the ‘founding’ moment of the Irish republic. It was not until mass conscription was threatened two years later that the mass of people were absorbed into the idea of an armed campaign against British rule. From 1919 to 1923, the reality of guerrilla-style war pressed people into a frame demanding discipline, secrecy, loyalty and a readiness to act as the prime nationalist virtues. The ideal form of relationship in war is the brotherhood, both as actuality and potent myth. The mythology of brotherhood creates its own myths of women (as not being there, and men not needing them) as well as creating the fear and the myth that rape is the inevitable expression of brotherhoods in action. Despite explicit anxiety at the time about the rape of Irish women by British soldiers, no evidence was found of mass rape, and that fear has disappeared into oblivion, throwing up important questions as to when rape is a weapon of war. The decade of war worsened the relationship of women to the political realm. Despite active involvement as ‘auxiliaries’ women's political status was permanently damaged by their exclusion as warriors and brothers, so much so that they disappear into the status of wives and mothers in the 1937 Irish Constitution. (shrink)