‘Barbarians at the Gates’: The Moral Costs of Political Community

2007 ◽  
pp. 170-188
Author(s):  
Rob Sparrow
Keyword(s):  
Political Community

Religion and the Construction of a Christian Roman Polity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-113
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotiroti
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Ancient Christianity

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.

Five Lessons from European Democracy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matijasevich
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Track Record ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
The Eu

Outside of some states still struggling with post-communist transitions, Europe itself may be the first European democracy to collapse in decades. Though never a bastion of participatory democracy and even subject to continuous criticism due to its democratic deficit, the European Union (EU) has provided hope to those who envision a post-national democratic political community. As such, whether the EU survives its present crisis or not, cosmopolitan democrats will look to the EU as a vindication of their ideals. Though perhaps surprising given their track record, this paper will argue that political scientists, especially those concerned with democratization, can also be optimistic about what the EU has brought to the table in terms of how we conceive processes of democratic development. Throughout the paper it will be demonstrated that the creation and maintenance of the European democracy has challenged much of the literature's fundamental assumptions of what makes democracy work. Five key lessons from the European democratic experience will be presented in an attempt to disrupt some of these assumptions including lessons regarding the diversity of the demos, the contingency of democratic upkeep, the challenges of the state, the role of elites in political transformation, and the necessity of exclusion within inclusive spaces. Though a general theory of democracy will not be presented, suggestions will be made as to how we can incorporate some of these lessons into the dominant approaches to democracy found in the literature.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.214

Introduction: What kind of Europe: Multiculturalism, Migration and Political Community – Lessons from Canada (?)

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Schmidtke ◽  
Constantin Chira-Pascanut
Keyword(s):  
Full Text ◽  
Political Community

not available   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i3.171

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Power Relation ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Women's Human Rights ◽  
Taking Responsibility

Just responsibility is a transformative human rights politics for taking on the complexities, power inequalities, and social normalization of injustice itself. Just responsibility is a human rights theory of political responsibility in which we understand human rights as enjoyed and shared throughout political community (and human rights entitlements as a tool toward that end), political community as defined by its web of networks, not its boundaries, accountability as a political process of discernment, not a power relation, and leadership as a quality of political community, not of individuals within it. Found within and supported by the principles-in-practice of women’s human rights activists, this grounded normative theory of responsibility guides us in a human rights enhancing way to be accountable leaders in political transformation, taking responsibility for global injustice in a just way.

Valuing Political Difference

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanie du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
Oriented Activity

Embracing risk and ambiguity, rather than closure and certainty, a third typology of reconciliation theorists have emerged. Calling themselves agonists, they emphasize that reconciliation is fundamentally open-ended, deliberative, and has to strive consciously to include “conflict through other means.” Seen through this lens, reconciliation is more a process-oriented activity than an outcomes-driven one. Agonist reconciliation understands its inception as the call, amid conflict, to political community. Its unfolding is described as incessant discourse and debate, and its promise is understood as the commitment never to stop debating the terms of togetherness in a given context. My criticism of this position rests on two points: underestimating what it takes to overcome violence, and its one-sided emphasis on process at the expense of any predetermined outcomes—a situation that would, I argue, be unacceptable especially to those victims of oppression who correctly demand redress and justice as definite predetermined outcomes of reconciliation.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Sajó ◽  
Renáta Uitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
Practical Applications

This book examines the implications of constitutionalism for the constitutional legal order and the political community which is meant to live by it. The book demonstrates what is at stake in the debate on constitutionalism through numerous examples of political anomalies and abuse of power. It presents stories of constitutional success and failure to give a sense of the current threats, arguing that constitutions are not mere practical applications of political philosophies or opportunistic political deals. The book considers foundational issues related to constitutions and constitutionalism as reflected in influential ideas, political practices, and social dynamics behind the scenes.

Searching for Political Parties in the Past

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Common

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.

Neurointerventions, Morality, and Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clayton ◽  
Andres Moles
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Moral Constraint ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Moral Limits

Is the political community morally permitted to use neurointerventions to improve the moral conduct of children? Putting aside difficult questions concerning the institutionalization of moral enhancement, the authors address this question, first, by arguing that is not, in itself, always morally impermissible for the community to impose neurointerventions on adults. Although certain ideals, such as the ideal of individual autonomy, limit the permissible employment of neurointerventions, they do not generate a moral constraint that always forbids their use. Thereafter, they argue that because young children lack certain moral capacities that adults possess, the moral limits that pertain to the use of neurointerventions to improve their moral behaviour are, in principle, less restrictive than they are for adults.

Turnout in Multi-Level Systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sona N. Golder ◽  
Ignacio Lago ◽  
André Blais ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Thomas Gschwend
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Level ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Different Levels

Voters face different incentives to turn out to vote in one electoral arena versus another. Although turnout is lowest in European elections, it is found that the turnout is only slightly lower in regional than in national elections. Standard accounts suggest that the importance of an election, in terms of the policy-making power of the body to be elected, drives variation in turnout across elections at different levels. This chapter argues that this is only part of the story, and that voter attachment to a particular level also matters. Not all voters feel connected to each electoral arena in the same way. Although for some, their identity and the issues they most care about are linked to politics at the national level, for others, the regional or European level may offer the political community and political issues that most resonate with them.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document