scholarly journals Populist Becoming: The Red Shirt Movement and Political Affliction in Thailand

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Kyeong Seo
Keyword(s):  
Mass Movement ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
Populist Movements

In this article, I explore the ways in which political subjectivities take shape through populist mobilization and dissipation. While the rise and increasing electoral success of populist movements across the world are largely attributed to charismatic leadership that conjures the will of “the people,” much less known is how people become populist subjects at a particular historical juncture. By attending to personal accounts of participation and detachment in a mass movement known as the Red Shirts in Thailand, I explore how the politics of becoming that emerges from this movement obfuscates the conventional distinction between populist and democratic identification. The articulation of populist subjects’ aspiration and affliction provides a window into the undetermined aspects of political mobilization from the realm of the ordinary. บทคัดย่อ ในบทความนี้ ข้าพเจ้ามุ่งศึกษาแนวทางการก่อร่างสร้างอัตวิสัยทางการเมือง ผ่านการมีส่วนร่วมในการเคลื่อนไหวแบบประชานิยมตลอดจนการสลายตัวของการเคลื่อนไหวดังกล่าว ในแง่หนึ่ง ความสำเร็จในการเลือกตั้งที่พบได้ในหลายประเทศทั่วโลก มาจากการเคลื่อนไหวแบบประชานิยม ซึ่งโดยมากมักจะกล่าวถึงผู้นำที่มีเอกลักษณ์ มีความสามารถในการชักจูงโน้มน้าว และสามารถตอบสนองต่อความต้องการของ “มวลชน” อย่างไรก็ตาม การศึกษาเกี่ยวกับปัจเจกหรือผู้ที่เข้าร่วมการเคลื่อนไหวแบบประชานิยมผ่านห้วงวิกฤตการณ์หรือการเปลี่ยนแปลงทางการเมืองนั้นยังมีน้อย ในการศึกษานี้ ข้าพเจ้าอาศัยเรื่องราวและประสบการณ์ของผู้ที่มีส่วนร่วมในการเคลื่อนไหวทางการเมืองของกลุ่มคนเสื้อแดงในประเทศไทยจนกระทั่งปลีกตัวออกจากการเคลื่อนไหวดังกล่าว เพื่อสำรวจการเมืองของการกลายเป็น (Politics of Becoming) ที่เกิดขึ้นภายในบริบทการเคลื่อนไหวแบบประชานิยม ทั้งนี้ ข้อค้นพบของข้าพเจ้าทำให้ความเข้าใจต่อแนวคิดเดิมที่แบ่งแยกขั่วกลุ่มอัตลักษณ์ทางการเมืองแบบประชานิยมออกจากกลุ่มอัตลักษณ์ทางการเมืองแบบประชาธิปไตยนั้นสับสนยิ่งขึ้น ข้าพเจ้าเสนอให้เราทำความเข้าใจกับความสับสนดังกล่าว รวมถึงปฏิเสธการมองว่าความหลากหลาย ไม่เป็นระเบียบ ทวิลักษณ์ของความหมาย และมิติทางอารมณ์ความรู้สึกของผู้ที่มีส่วนร่วมในการเคลื่อนไหวแบบประชานิยมนั้น เป็นปัญหาที่ต้องได้รับการเยียวยาแก้ไข หากแต่ภาวะดังกล่าวเป็นลักษณะสำคัญที่ชี้ให้เห็นว่าประชานิยมมีส่วนในการก่อร่างสร้างอัตวิสัยแบบใหม่ การทำความเข้าใจกับความมุ่งหวัง ความปราถนา และความบอบช้ำของผู้ท่ีมีส่วนร่วมในการเคลื่อนไหวดังกล่าว อาจเป็นหนทางที่จะช่วยให้เราทำความเข้าใจกับแง่มุมใหม่ๆ เกี่ยวกับการเคลื่อนไหวทางการเมือง จากปริมณฑลของคนธรรมดาสามัญ [อัตวิสัยทางการเมือง การเคลื่อนไหวมวลชน ความบอบช้ำ ประชานิยม การกลายเป็น คนเสื้อแดง ประเทศไทย] 국문초록 본 논문은 포퓰리즘 운동의 확대와 해소 과정에서 정치적 주체성이 만들어지는 다양한 양상을 탐구한다. 포퓰리즘 정치의 전세계적 성장과 선거 정치에서 커져가는 영향력은 흔히 대중 혹은 인민의 의지를 결집시킬 수 있는 카리스마적 지도자의 성공과 등치되어 왔다. 그러나 과연 어떻게 대중 혹은 인민이 특정한 역사적 시점에서 포퓰리스트가 되는가에 대해서는 충분한 논의가 이루어지지 못한 바 있다. 이러한 문제의식을 바탕으로 본 논문은 태국 레드셔츠 운동의 흥망성쇠를 경유한 한 개인의 삶 경험을 탐색하고, 이를 통해 대중 운동에 기반한 되기(becoming)의 정치가 포퓰리즘과 민주주의에 대한 관습적 구분을 흐트러트리는 양상에 주목한다. 포퓰리스트 주체성을 고무하는 복잡한 정동과 의미들은 민주주의 정치를 저해하는 병폐가 아니며, 역으로 정치적 주체성의 새로운 형식들이 만들어지고 작동하는 방식을 핵심적으로 보여준다. 포퓰리스트 주체들의 변화에 대한 열망과 수난의 경험은 일상의 영역에서부터 정치적 동원의 아직 결정되지 않은, 불확정적 속성을 드러낸다.    

Equality and Exploitation in the Market Socialist Community

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Scott Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Mass Movement ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
New Institutions

Historically, critics of capitalism have had a great deal to say about the defects and social ills that afflict capitalist society and correspondingly little to say about how alternative institutional arrangements might solve these problems. One can only speculate about why this has been so. One reason might be a simple matter of priorities. Bertolt Brecht once said that when a man's house is on fire, one does not inquire too closely into alternative arrangements for shelter. The analogy between capitalism and a burning house may seem overwrought today, but in the dark days of the Depression of the 1930s it probably seemed more apt. Another explanation for the scant attention paid to alternatives to capitalism has to do with both the factual and ideological beliefs of capitalism's critics. If one believes (as, for example, Marx and Engels did) that the existing order would be destroyed by a mass movement, that new institutions would be constructed by the people in a democratic spirit, and that furthermore all of this would be a good thing, it would be unwise and counterproductive to try to spell out exactly where history is headed. After all, a genuine mass movement has little use for self-proclaimed prophets of history. Finally, men and women of modest intellectual pretensions might be humbled by the prospects of trying to spell out in any detail social institutions that should exist or might exist but are not as yet found anywhere in the world.

“The last vestige of institutionalized sexism”? Paternalism, Equal Rights and the Death Penalty in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Sunbelt America: The Case for Florida

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
VIVIEN MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Common Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
Special Consideration ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Gas Chamber

In February 1941, thirty male San Quentin prisoners petitioned Governor Culbert Levy Olson of California (the state's first Democrat governor in the twentieth century) to stop the execution of Eithel Leta Juanita Spinelli, “a merciless gang leader called the Duchess,” who had been convicted, along with her common-law husband and another male accomplice, of the murder of nineteen-year-old Robert Sherrard. All three defendants were sentenced to die in the gas chamber. Former San Quentin warden, Clinton T. Duffy, remembered Spinelli as “the coldest, hardest character, male or female” that he had “ever known,” and utterly lacking in “feminine appeal.” Thus the presentation of a jailhouse petition to save her from the gas chamber rather perplexed him, and he remained firm in his belief that the majority of San Quentin's inmates were unconcerned by the impending execution. Nonetheless, the petitioners argued that Spinelli should not be executed and offered to take her place either in the death chamber, or to serve out her life term in the event of a commutation of sentence. According to Duffy, the prisoners asserted “that Mrs. Spinelli's execution would be repulsive to the people of California; that no woman in her right mind could commit the crime charged to her; that the execution of a woman would hurt California in the eyes of the world; that both the law and the will of the people were against the execution; that Mrs. Spinelli, as the mother of three children, should have special consideration; that California's proud record of never having executed a woman should not be spoiled”.

scholarly journals The Concept of Populism in Modern Anglo-Saxon and German Political Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-764
Author(s):  
Dmitry Y. Meshcheryakov
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Will ◽  
Right Wing Populism

The article examines and compares main approaches to defining populism in modern Anglo-Saxon and German political science. The author points out some similarities between two schools: increasing interest of research communities in the USA, United Kingdom and Germany in examining right-wing populism due to the electoral success of right-wing populist parties. Furthermore, among the key features of populism, both schools see the allusion to “the will of the people”, as well as juxtaposition of “the people” against “the elite”. The article emphasizes the existing reciprocal influence of the two research traditions. On the other hand, the author outlines certain differences in the two schools’ approach to populism, such as historical dissimilarities in its interpretation (in the USA the concept used to bear a more “neutral” character, while in German political science, due to the Nazi regime carryover, it was regarded mostly negatively for a long time). Also, German academic works on populism have applied rather than theoretical nature and aim at stopping the expansion of the phenomenon.

Ambiguous Subject: the “Masses” (qunzhong) Discourse in Modern China

Cultura ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156
Author(s):  
Lifeng LI
Keyword(s):  
Mass Movement ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Mass Psychology ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Elites ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Dynamic Forces ◽  
The Masses

Abstract The “masses”(qunzhong ) discourse in modern China was influenced by two western intellectual traditions, i.e., mass psychology and historical materialism. The former regards the masses as a blind, impulsive, and irrational crowd, while the latter thinks that only the people are the real dynamic forces of historical development. As a result, the “masses” discourse in modern China bifurcated into a negative one of “mass psychology” and a positive one of “mass movement”, both of which were employed as effective tools of political mobilization by different political parties and social elites. The concept of the “masses” was either the crystallization of the abstract “people”(renmin ) or the actualization of the ideal “citizenry”(guomin ). What is embodied in the concepts of the people, the citizenry, and the masses in modern China was actually an ambiguous image of a political subject.

scholarly journals ‘People like that cannot be trusted’: populist and technocratic political styles, legitimacy, and distrust in the context of Brexit negotiations

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Farrand ◽  
Helena Carrapico
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

Debates in and over the European Union (EU) are increasingly characterised as being based in arguments that are either ‘populist’ or ‘technocratic’. As systems of communication, this article argues, populism and technocracy possess dramatically different logics of argumentation, modes of communication and meaning-making, distinct narratives, with appeals to distinct sources of legitimacy. As such, actors adopting either political style construct their identity in a way that seeks to legitimise its own political action, while in turn delegitimising that of its opponents. This results in an atmosphere of distrust between actors using these different communication styles, making any form of negotiation or cooperation between them exceedingly difficult. In the context of the Brexit negotiations, which this article uses as a case study, the UK Government has adopted a populist style characterised by narratives of taking back control, legitimised by the will of the people, communicating often in a ‘low’ political style and using a narrative of crisis and threat. In comparison, the EU has adopted a technocratic style characterised by narratives of technical policy making and the need for rationality, legitimised through the laws, rules and processes by which it is governed, communicating in a ‘high’ political style while using a narrative of stability and continuity. These radically different views of the world have resulted in an increasing of tensions and distrust by the parties to Brexit negotiations that were already heightened by a sense of ‘betrayal’ over Brexit.

scholarly journals Building the rule of law state as a guarantor of democracy in modern Vietnam

Upravlenie ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Tu Thi Thoa
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Independent State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Building the rule of law state (referred to as the rule of law) is an objective trend for democratic countries in the modern world, including Vietnam. Thoughts about the rule of law in Vietnam, related to the people’s desire to have an independent state that is organised and acts in accordance with the provisions of law, represents the will and aspirations of the people, protects human rights and citizens’ rights under law, have emerged since the early years of the 20th century. Along with the national liberation struggle, the rule of law state in Vietnam was officially established in 1945, after the victory of the August Revolution (August 19, 1945). It has its own characteristics related to the socialist political regime under the leadership of only one party – the Communist Party of Vietnam.As in many countries around the world, the promotion and expansion of democracy is one of the objectives of building the rule of law in modern Vietnam. The article clarifies some theoretical issues about the rule of law state, the rule of law ideology formation and the rule of law state characteristics in Vietnam. A number of issues that require attention when building a rule of law state to ensure democracy in modern Vietnam is considered

scholarly journals DEMOCRATAS TÊM MEDO DO POVO? O populismo como resistência política

Caderno CRH ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (85) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Daniel De Mendonça
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Mots Clés ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Nous Pensons ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will

<p class="Normal1">O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar o populismo de esquerda como resistência política contra regimes estabelecidos. Para cumprir esse objetivo, o texto está dividido em três seções principais. Primeiramente, discorremos acerca do atual estado das democracias liberais. Na sequência, tratamos dos impasses teóricos e práticos do populismo para, após, apresentar nossa visão conceitual do fenômeno, ou seja, uma lógica político-discursiva que constitui o povo antagonicamente a seus inimigos. Na última seção, apresentamos a noção de vontade dos iguais, primeiramente discorrendo sobre a dualidade da igualdade: a invenção democrática da igualdade como princípio e a igualdade como horizonte. A seguir, analisamos a estrutura da vontade dos iguais, um tipo específico de populismo de esquerda, o qual entendemos ser capaz de iluminar aspectos referentes às distintas manifestações que têm tido lugar no mundo desde a Primavera Árabe.</p><p class="Normal1"> </p><p class="Normal1"><strong>DO DEMOCRATS HAVE AFRAID OF PEOPLE? A defense of populism as political resistance </strong></p><p class="Normal1">This article aims at presenting left-wing populism as political resistance against established regimes. For that, the text is divided into three main parts. Firstly, we discuss the current situation of liberal democracies. After we treat some theoretical and practical deadlocks of populism to present our conceptual vision of this phenomenon, that is, a discursive political logic which constitutes the people antagonistically against their enemies. In the last part, we introduce the notion of the will of equals, firstly discussing the duality of equality (the democratic invention of equality as principle and equality as the horizon). Following, we analyse the structure of the will of equals, a particular type of left-wing populism, which we understand to be able to uncover aspects referring to different demonstrations that have been occurring around the World since Arab Spring.</p><p class="Normal1">Keywords: Populism. Democracy. Political resistance. The will of equals.</p><p class="Normal1"><strong>LES DEMOCRATES ONT-ILS PEUR DU PEUPLE? Une defense du populisme comme resistance politique </strong></p><p class="Normal1">Cet article vise à présenter le populisme de gauche comme résistance politique contre les régimes établis. Pour cela, le texte est divisé en trois parties principales. Tout d’abord, nous discutons de la situation actuelle des démocraties libérales. Après,nous traitons certaines impasses théoriques et pratiques du populisme pour présenter notre vision conceptuelle de ce phénomène, il s’agit, une logique politique discursive qui constitue le peuple de manière antagoniste contre ses ennemis. Dans la dernière partie, nous introduisons la notion de volonté des égaux, en abordant d’abord la dualité de l’égalité (la invention démocratique de l’égalité comme principe et de l’égalité comme horizon). Nous analysons ensuite la structure de la volonté des égaux, un type particulier de populisme de gauche, que nous pensons pouvoir découvrir des aspects faisant référence aux différentes manifestations qui se sont déroulées dans le monde depuis le Printemps arabe.</p><p class="Normal1">Mots-clés: Populisme. Démocratie. Résistance politique. Volonté des égaux.</p>

Universal Values and Muslim Democracy

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Anwar Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
World Today ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
Dignified Life

This study deals with Universal Values and Muslim Democracy. This essay draws upon speeches that he gave at the New York Democ- racy Forum in December 2005 and the Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Istanbul in April 2006. The emergence of Muslim democracies is something significant and worthy of our attention. Yet with the clear exceptions of Indonesia and Turkey, the Muslim world today is a place where autocracies and dictatorships of various shades and degrees continue their parasitic hold on the people, gnawing away at their newfound freedoms. It concludes that the human desire to be free and to lead a dignified life is universal. So is the abhorrence of despotism and oppression. These are passions that motivate not only Muslims but people from all civilizations.

On the Will of the People: Notes on the Political “Theory” of Populism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
National People ◽  
The Will

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.

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