![Jean-Paul Gagnon: Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2015_29371.jpg)
Jean-Paul Gagnon: Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought
Review of the book: Jean-Paul Gagnon: Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Review of the book: Jean-Paul Gagnon: Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought
More...
Review of the book: Přemysl Rosůlek: Politický secesionismus & etické teorie. Allen Buchanan a jeho kritici
More...
The main assumption of this paper is that the Romanian film industry and the film directors themselves are going through a process of aesthetic and narrative transformation, mostly due to the impact of post-national cinema making practices. Some of the recent works in the contemporary Romanian filmmaking are following the logic of another stylistic, that of a delocalized cinema, a cinema that is both deterritorialized and non-specific nationally. This is explicit in the way the directors are defining the national space, the territorial identity and, finally, the way in which they project social and collective representations. Using as a case study Bogdan Mirică’s first feature film, Câini (Dogs, 2016), the author argues that his cinematic practices indicate a conscious abandoning of the national specificity. Using the concepts of territorialization and deterritorialization used by Deleuze and Guattari, the author reaches to the conclusion is that we are witnessing the manifestations of a glocal cinema, one in which transnational genres and narratives are placed in local environments, which end up by creating a new and reterritorialized reality.
More...
The author claims there are various types of tolerance. He defines tolerance as a dispositional feature of human beings versus other human beings. The basic formula of democratic tolerance runs as follows: mutual tolerance is better than both the risks of tyranny due to intolerance and the risks of a civil war. It disguises the latent aggressiveness underlying our democratic societies. Dangerous developments have been detected for the future of European Union. It is faced with a choice: is it going to develop according in the direction of national states or the europeization of national states. The first leads into an increasing intolerance. The solution lies in tolerance which can be preserved by the europeization of democracy.
More...
The first remarkable signs of the skinhead subculture, according to the current literature, date back to 1985, but the first signs of skinhead can be traced between 1983 and 1984. The anti-communist mood in society and growing community intolerance towards the gypsy population have paved the way for far-right thinking. This was further stimulated by the infiltration of news from foreign medias, which considered ultra-right action to be a sensation, and because of this marketing step, the population was so supplied with hot news. The relationship between the punk movement and the skinhead subculture is basically that skinheads are merging from punk movement because of the influence of so-called Oi movement or by the imagination of foreign media, such as the 100+1 magazine of foreign interests. The right-wing skins experienced its own Renaissance when the Orlík music group emerged, which, however, evaded from neo-Nazism promoted abroad and built its values on patriotism and racism, although some of those texts attracted a number of those fans. With the collapse of the communist regime and the opening of the information flow, several subcultures began to be profiled by yet unavailable information.
More...
Some of the main proponents of constitutional economics consider this spin-off from public choice to be a research program, following Lakatos. In this paper I intend to show how constitutional economics can avoid becoming a degenerating program by focusing on its normative dimension. More specifically, I argue that the lessons of models developed within this research program can, and should be applied to political philosophy. However, this instance of epistemic imperialism is bound to have a significant effect on the auxiliary assumptions of constitutional economics, which will have to elaborate new hypotheses in order to avoid some of the counterintuitive implications to which it leads under its current positive heuristic. Throughout the paper, I focus mainly on the Leviathan model of government growth put forward by Brennan and Buchanan.
More...
This paper presents a review of synoptic neorealism and constellation analysis of international relations, conceived by Karl-Gottfried Kindermann at the University of Munich in the late 1970s. Although neglected in theoretical reviews of the field, in part because of language barriers, this school is an implicit analytical framework for a large number of practice- oriented studies. Clarity and conciseness of constellation analysis are presented through a small number of elements: system, perceptions, power, interests, norms, and strategies. However, synoptic neorealism goes much beyond the reference framework of structural neorealism in the direction of modern constructivist and critical approaches to international relations, with all advantages and risks that it brings.
More...
This article is an attempt to construct a theoretical model for analysis of the determinants of foreign policy and to apply it to the case study of Serbia. Having firstly critically evaluated several authors’approaches to that issue in international and domestic literature, the author has made his definition of the term determinants of foreign policy, trying to overcome shortcomings of other definitions, and classifies all determinants in four basic groups: historical, determinants from the international environment, determinants of the socio-political („domestic“) system and idiosyncratic factors. He classifies different factors in the most adequate of these four groups, explains their content and meaning. At the end of the theoretical part of this article, the author shortly turns to some methodological problems dealing with the approach he used. Thereupon, as an example of the concrete application of the proposed model, the author analyses relevant determinants of the foreign policy of Serbia. In the concluding remarks, he calls for improvements of this model as a pioneer theoretical attempt, or – by James Rosenau's term – contribution to a pre-theory of the foreign policy, to achieve the highest possible theoretical level and thus to improve the results of the model's practical applications.
More...
The material scope of the analysis undertaken in the text covers the issues concerned with the relationship between two goods. Between the good constituted by community security on the one hand, and the good vested in the power to apply special measures falling within necessary defence and the state of higher necessity. The problem of the relationship between two goods, e.g. a conflict between two goods, can be observed in the competition between the common good and the good of the individual. A similar relation can be noted in the process of derogation from the obligations upon the contemporary political community as regards protection of life and other individual rights and freedoms. Special cases of the conflict between goods include the admissibility of the use of force, violence or restriction of individual freedom. Undoubtedly, situations in which individuals or groups are subjected to torture or have their life taken serve as the most extreme examples of violence use by the political community. All kinds of surveillance measures used by state institutions should be reckoned among the examples concerned with interference in individuals’ private lives.The main purpose of the analysis contained in the text is to present all manner of argumentation concerned with the possibility of applying special measures within or outside the bounds of necessary defence and the state of higher necessity by the political community. In order to elaborate the objective scope of the analysis, the following research questions have been formulated in the text: (1) To what extent is it possible, within the limits of the law and per analogiam to the individual’s adequate actions, for the political community to apply special measures (necessary defence or the state of higher necessity) with the aim of providing security (and in particular counter terrorism security) for itself?, (2) To what extent is it possible, outside the limits of the law and per analogiam to the individual’s adequate actions, for the political community to apply special measures (necessary defence or the state of higher necessity) with the aim of providing security (and in particular counter terrorism security) for itself?The presented analysis is chiefly an overview of a conceptual character with regard to the presentation of the issues concerned with the relationship between such goods as security and special powers of a political community. For the presentation of the legal aspects of this issue textual, functional and systemic interpretations have been applied. Next to the individual kinds of legal interpretation, in the course of argumentation a theoretical reflection on the law is used. The conceptual approach to the title problem makes use of argumentation per analogiam to appropriate actions by an individual when faced with a direct threat, and specified in the provisions of the Polish criminal law – necessary defence and the state of higher necessity.
More...
It is universally assumed nowadays that the meaning of the concept of liberty is clear. It is supposed to be a negative concept, pertaining to the sphere of unimpeded action of a person. However there is another modern meaning of the concept of liberty, a republican meaning, that is also a negative concept of liberty that completes the established liberal concept of liberty and corrects it, improves it while showing its falseness.
More...
First analyzed is the issue of the notion of the crisis of state which is treated in different ways in literature, although some degree of agreement does exist regarding the hindrances to normal functionning of state and fulfilling of aims otherwise naural for the state. The basis for differences are different theoretical and ideological-political stanдрoints, mostly related to marxist and non-marxist theoreticians. The first ones see the causes for the crisis in the shortcomings of capitalist economy based on exploitation, so that the way out of it are effected within such framework. The latter authors, on the other hand, find the causes of the crisis of state in ever greater requirements from the contemporary capitalist state, and more particularly from the so-called welfare state. These, in turn, require state intervention in the sphere of economy and the coordination of conflicting interests. Some common denominator in terms of proposing possible way our of the crisis is found in a justified request to settle the crisis situations through the participation of wide layers of population in the management of the state, namely in the realization of its functions of the protector of general social interest.
More...
The article aims to explain the phenomenon of modulation of political relations and to present the proposition of theoretical systematization of modulators of political relations. It is based on meta-theoretical analysis of the nature of modulation and modulators. The categories of modulation and modulators seem to have a significant explanatory utility on the ground of political theory as they refer to the problem of regulation, correction, adjustment, and homeostasis of political relations. The paper is an invitation to further studies in the field of political theory on the title issue, indicating possible directions of prospective inquiries.
More...
The main objective of the article is to analyze the theoretical basis of the creation of political activity based on the case of the Spanish party Podemos, which can be treated as a theoretical construct transferred to political reality by means of tools derived from the research experience of its creators, especially Pablo Iglesias Turrión and Íñigo Errejón Galván. By interpreting reality on the basis of theories derived from the post-Marxist paradigm, an entity has been created with nationwide influence that affected the nature and direction of political activity taken by both politicians and citizens. The study aims to demonstrate the validity, feasibility, and conditions of applying solutions based on theoretical aspects.
More...
This article treats a relevant theme of political philosophy - the relationship between political, military and moral to Machiavelli. The author argues that Machiavelli has established not only the autonomy of politics and political theory against religious or moral justifications, but also the autonomy of political theorist, and show that Machiavelli's conviction in the superiority of citizen-soldiers qualifies him as a hyper-realistic.
More...
Is polarisation a fundamental threat to the open society? Are the divisions that run through societies and separate them into two (or more) more or less hostile groups problems to be solved? Or are they the corollaries of a vibrant democratic system that might legitimately be called an ‘open society’? These are the questions I seek to explore in this contribution to the special issue. My argument unfolds through a reinterpretation of Karl Popper’s conception of open society as a democratic idea, characterised by an appreciation of genuine human plurality and diversity that make ‘critical encounters with the other side’ possible (and desirable); this conception of open society also recognises the progressive potential of social and political conflicts. For that reason, political polarisation cannot be regarded as a lethal threat to open societies. By contrast, ‘belief polarisation’, with its Manichean orientation and anti-political tendencies, is a much more serious threat. It follows that advocates of open society should avoid the temptation to solve the ‘problem’ of political polarisation – they should accept it as the price to be paid for the ‘imperfect ideal’ of open society. However, they should take steps to reduce belief polarisation through the active creation of spaces of critical encounters with the other side. The overarching aim of the article, then, is to make a contribution to both the literature on open society and polarisation. To that end, I will bring the concept of open society and the phenomenon of polarisation into a relationship of reciprocal elucidation: through the engagement with open society, I will shine some light on polarisation, and through the analysis of polarisation, I will put flesh on the concept of open society.
More...
This article revisits the intellectual and ideological formation of Houston Stewart Cham berlain, the central anti Semitic and racist public intellectual of the Wilhelmine Empire. I intend to interpret Chamberlain’s ideological disposition and political activism not only as a product of German national discourse, but as rooted in a European context. The ar ticle illustrates, firstly, how imagined European spatial dimensions informed Chamber lain’s racial conceptions; secondly, his perception of the periphery of the Habsburg Empire as a völkisch battlefield; and, thirdly, the way in which he influenced a host of different publics, primarily the German, but also other European societies like the Romanian. His ability to adjust and to modernise ensured the longevity of his intellectual legacy beyond the Wilhelmine Empire and connected his thinking with the origins of the early National Socialist movement.
More...