Epistemological Impostors and the Communicative Dimension of Scholarly Debate (Notes on Zoran Oklopcic, Beyond the People. Social Imaginary and Constituent Imagination, Oxford, OUP, 2018)

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graziella Romeo
Keyword(s):  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The People

The Public Sphere and Journalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthea Garman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Position Statement ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The Public ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Function

The public sphere is a social entity with an important function and powerful effects in modern, democratic societies. The idea of the public sphere rests on the conviction that people living in a society, regardless of their age, gender, religion, economic or social status, professional position, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, or nationality, should be able to publicly express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions about issues that matter to them and impact their lives. This expression should be as free as possible in form and function and should operate through means and methods that people themselves deem suitable, so not via channels that are official or state-sanctioned. The classic Habermasian idea of the public sphere is that it is used by private individuals (not officials or politicians) who should be able to converse with each other in a public-spirited way to develop opinions that impact state or public-body decisions and policies. Also contained within this classic idea is the conviction that public sphere conversations should be rational (i.e., logical, evidence-based, and properly motivated and argued using an acceptable set of rhetorical devices) in order to convince others of the usefulness of a position, statement, or opinion. In commonsensical, political, and journalistic understandings, the public sphere is a critical component of a democracy that enables ordinary citizens to act as interlocutors to those who hold power and thereby hold them to account. As such it is one of the elements whereby democracy as a system is able to claim legitimacy as the “rule of the people.” Journalism’s imbrication in the social imaginary of the public sphere dates back to 17th- and 18th-century Europe when venues like coffee houses, clubs, and private homes, and media like newspapers and newsletters were being used by a mixture of gentry, nobility, and an emerging middle class of traders and merchants and other educated thinkers to disseminate information and express ideas. The conviction that journalism was the key vehicle for the conveyance of information and ideas of public import was then imbedded in the foundations of the practice of modern journalism and in the form exported from Western Europe to the rest of the world. Journalism’s role as a key institution within and vehicle of the public sphere was thus born. Allied to this was the conviction that journalism, via this public sphere role and working on behalf of the public interest (roughly understood as the consensus of opinions formed in the public sphere), should hold political, social, and economic powers to account. Journalists are therefore understood to be crucial proxies for the millions of people in a democracy who cannot easily wield on their own the collective voices that journalism with its institutional bases can produce.

In Search of True-ness: Dialogue Between Political Localism and Theological Ecumenism in Post-Umbrella Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lap Yan Kung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Church

Abstract Seeking for true-ness is the core concern of the people of Hong Kong during the Umbrella Movement. That search starts from the political structure (true universal suffrage), and continues through into the formation of identity (true Hongkongese). This article illustrates how the Umbrella Movement has provided the people of Hong Kong with an experience of a truthful politics which is different from the current realpolitik. It sets out to see Hong Kong as their homeland, while developing a new language in terms of political localism. Nevertheless, there is a tendency for such political localism to become too narrow, exclusive and sentimental. The ecumenicity of the church interpreted in the light of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology is a different social imaginary. It can challenge both the inclination to narrowness and exclusivism of political localism, and the authoritarianism of the Chinese authorities. It possesses the potential to enrich the people of Hong Kong by allowing them to see that the unity of humankind (creation) is the ground of politics.

scholarly journals Crisis and Belonging: Protest Voices and Empathic Solidarity in Post-Economic Collapse Iceland

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Heffernan
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Democratic Reform ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Economic Collapse ◽  
The Government ◽  
International Identity

This article explores the politics of belonging in Iceland in the context of an ethico-political project focused around increased transparency following the country’s 2008 banking collapse. By employing literature on autochthony (i.e., a return to, and interpretation of, “the local”), it examines the tensions that are reignited within and between nation-states during economic crisis. Through ethnography with ordinary Icelanders and the members of two protest movements, this research shows how Icelanders are cultivating a public voice to navigate the political constraints of crisis and reshaping Icelanders’ international identity from below in the wake of the collapse. To this end, the article accounts for the role of populist politics in re-embedding Iceland into the European social imaginary as an economically responsible and egalitarian nation. It then turns to highlight the push for meaningful democratic reform through collaborative, legislative exchange between the government and the people that resulted in a new—if not actually implemented—constitution. By exploring protest culture in Iceland, the article highlights the importance of public witnessing and empathic solidarity in building intercultural relations in an era of globalized finance and politics.

scholarly journals Rewolucja dokonana i obroniona

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-230
Author(s):  
Bronisław Gołębiowski
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Foreign Intervention ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Second World

The author disputes Leder’s idea in Prześniona rewolucja. Ćwiczenie z logiki historycznej [A Missed Revolution: Exercise in Historical Logic] (2014) that a great revolution, eliminating the “late feudalism” of the 19th century, occurred in Poland in the years 1939–1956 and that it happened because of the war’s destruction of the old social structures and the Nazi genocide of the Jewish population, that is, the bourgeois class, which was replaced in the years 1945–1956 by unconscious beneficiaries of the change. The beneficiaries were unaware, he writes, because the essence of the changes and their benefits never entered the social imaginary. The core of the author’s polemic is the claim that such change, which was conducted by force and by foreigners, can not be called a “revolution,” that is, the passage of society to modernity. Furthermore, the author claims that the great Polish revolution was conducted in full by the nation, by the peasant classes, in the years 1914–1922, and was popular and independence-oriented in nature. It was the continuation of the Polish independence uprisings of the 19th century, the result of changes in the social structure that had been occurring for years in the Polish lands, which were at the time divided between the partitioning states, and of deepening self-awareness among the people. The revolution was continued after Poland’s acquisition of independence in 1918. The Second World War, and foreign intervention, only disrupted that process.

Introduction: The Crisis in Ukraine Between the Law, Power, and Principle

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Oklopcic
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
German Law ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Political Modernity ◽  
The People ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Differences

AbstractThis special issue ofGerman Law Journal(GLJ) originates from a colloquium co-sponsored by theGLJ, the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, and the Center for Constitutional Transitions that took place at the Berkeley School of Law in February 2015, just over a year after the revolutionary events at Maidan Square in Kiev triggered profound changes in the geopolitical map of contemporary Europe and shook the foundations of international order.Beyond the gravity of the crisis itself, what animates the contributions in the following pages is an attendant awareness of the need to rethink the appropriateness of disciplinary responses to the conflict in Ukraine. Though the rhetoric of brazen takeovers, cynical ploys, stealing and redeeming, chronic authoritarianism and imperialism, hypocrisy, and broken promises have all contributed to a combustible political situation in and around Ukraine, a diverse sense of outrage has also been subtly, but nonetheless decisively, structured and amplified by the vocabularies of international and constitutional law, moral arguments, and their complicated interplay. Though differing in their practical ambitions, technical vocabulary, and the professional sensibilities they cultivate, the disciplines of international law, comparative constitutional law, and normative political theory, have each upheld one of the most important components of the modern social imaginary: The idea of popular sovereignty.The idea that the will of the people ought to be a decisive factor in resolving the crisis in Ukraine continues to unite most commentators, partisans, and scholars, irrespective of their otherwise profound ideological and political differences. From the perspective of overarching social imaginary, the ominous geopolitical crisis in Ukraine, while dangerous in its potential outcomes, appears as a family quarrel among the believers of the constitutional creed of western political modernity. Unlike another geopolitical crisis of our time—the attempts of ISIS to redraw the map of the Middle East—the situation in Ukraine is not a conflict over theexistenceof international legal order, but rather one over themeaningof its foundational building blocks: The internal and external self-determination of peoples, territorial integrity, and the sovereign equality of independent states.

scholarly journals SOSIALISME BUNG KARNO: MEMAHAMI IMAJINASI SOSIAL BUNG KARNO

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Rudiyanto Rudiyanto
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The People

This paper attempts to look at the ideas of Sukarno in regulating the nation with the theory of Social Imaginary. This theory speaks about portrayal of a nation through the eyes of the people. The portrayal is usually projected through legends, tales folktales and so forth. This paper saw Sukarno combines Western Social Imaginary with Social Imaginary of Indonesia to build a society of Indonesia. Sukarno then combines the concept of Internationalism to Nationalism. As well as the people’s democracy or Marhaen with a conviction if people politically sovereign and economically the nation will experience social justice.

Big Copyright Versus the People

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Skladany
Keyword(s):  
The People

Politics with the People

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Neblo ◽  
Kevin M. Esterling ◽  
David M. J. Lazer
Keyword(s):  
The People
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