Democracy in the Plural?

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-35
Author(s):  
Anna Friberg

The article explores some of the composite concepts of democracy that were used in Sweden, primarily by the Social Democrats during the interwar years. Should these be seen as pluralizations of the collective singular democracy or as something qualitatively new? By showing how these concepts relate to each other and to democracy as a whole, the article argues that they should be considered statements about democracy as one entity, that democracy did not only concern the political sphere, but was generally important throughout the whole of society. The article also examines the Swedish parliamentarians' attitudes toward democracy after the realization of universal suffrage, and argues that democracy was eventually perceived as such a positive concept that opponents of what was labeled democratic reforms had to reformulate the political issues into different words in order to avoid coming across as undemocratic.

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover


wisdom ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113
Author(s):  
Gegham HOVHANNISYAN

The article covers the manifestations and peculiarities of the ideology of socialism in the social-political life of Armenia at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. General characteristics, aims and directions of activity of the political organizations functioning in the Armenian reality within the given time-period, whose program documents feature the ideology of socialism to one degree or another, are given (Hunchakian Party, Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian Social-democrats, Specifics, Socialists-revolutionaries). The specific peculiarities of the national-political life of Armenia in the given time-period and their impact on the ideology of political forces are introduced.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Anke Strauß ◽  
Alexander Fleischmann

This article reconceptualises work-based solidarity as political action that is distinct from, yet interlinked with, a socio-economic mode of activity. To extend existing relational approaches to work, this article reads a case study of a cultural initiative through Hannah Arendt’s notions of labour, work and (political) action. With the latter being a form of engagement marked by plurality – the co-presence of equality and difference – the analysis shows how work-based solidarity as political activity is a temporary and precarious phenomenon. It necessitates constant engagement of various material and discursive elements to create its conditions. This article also shows how work-based solidarity is enabled through particular arrangements of activities stretching over both the socio-economic and the political sphere in a way that maintains the political mode of work distinct from socio-economic reasoning without ignoring its economic necessities.


Author(s):  
Treva B. Lindsey

This chapter explores the suffrage activism of black women in Washington. As one of the most pressing political issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the fight for universal suffrage was an important part of black women’s political activism throughout the New Negro era. The road to suffrage ended in Washington and black women suffragists in the nation’s capital were keenly aware the unique role they could play in advocating for universal suffrage. To understand the political culture of black women’s suffrage activism in Washington, the chapter centers on the March 1913 suffrage march in the nation’s capital to uncover the various dynamics of the suffrage movement and to specifically engage how black women thought about and enacted distinct political identities. For black suffragists, performative and aesthetic politics were resistive strategies for contesting their subordinate status in the political arena.


1978 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Blair

German politics are still influenced by the tradition of legalism. Constitutional provisions often serve as criteria of political argument, and constitutional principles (e.g. the ‘social state’) and basic rights may be portrayed as programmatic ‘commandments' justifying specific political demands. The corollary is a propensity towards judicial, and thus ‘authoritative’, solutions to political disputes. The post-war establishment of the Federal Constitutional Court with comprehensive constitutional jurisdiction and easy access for the political actors has subjected major political issues to legal adjudication. Increasingly appeal to the Court has become a weapon of opposition, resorted to by the Christian Democrats to challenge such measures as the Basic Treaty with East Germany and the Abortion Reform. Despite general self-restraint vis-à-vis the political authorities, the Court has sometimes construed basic rights expansively as ‘participatory’ rights to positive government action. Recently it has been criticised for ‘conservatism’ and a tendency to restrict future legislative discretion. The ‘politicization of justice’, emerging from the judicialization of politics, could affect respect for the Court as authoritative arbiter. But it may foster a healthier relationship between politics and the law.


STUDIUM ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 101-128
Author(s):  
Oscar López Acón

En aras de restituir la experiencia histórica de un sujeto histórico anónimo por antonomasia, como es el sujeto campesino, emerge la necesidad de aproximarnos a sus comportamientos políticos; en suma, a sus respuestas individuales y colectivas ante la articulación de un sistema de poder que adquiere la forma de liberalismo oligárquico hasta la instauración del sufragio universal masculino, en 1890. Así pues, el análisis de los marcos político-electorales, en tanto que continuum de la realidad social, se presenta como eje fundamental para aprehender las complejas relaciones entre campo y ciudad, al tiempo que permite proyectar una mirada «desde abajo», hacia las clases campesinas, como «desde arriba», hacia la génesis histórica de las élites. Palabras clave: campesinado, caciquismo, relaciones de poder, sufragio, Restauración (1874-1923). Abstract For the sake of reinstating the historic experience of a historic anonymous subject par excellence, as is the peasant subject, as is the peasant subject, the need to approach his political attitude emerges; in short, his response, both individually and collectively to the articulation of a power system which comes in the shape of oligarchic liberalism until the establishment of male universal suffrage, in 1890. So, the analysis of the political-election frames, as continuum of the social reality, shows up as the fundamental axis in order to seize the complex relationships between the countryside and the cities, at the same time enabling us to take a look, both ‘from below’, at the peasant status, and ‘from the top’ to the historical genesis of the elites. Key words: peasantry, caciquism, power relations, suffrage, Restauración (1874-1923).


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 347
Author(s):  
Safutra Rantona ◽  
Asmaul Husna

Nineteen months have passed, but the action of the political religious social movements which born post religious sacrilege case on Elections Jakarta turned out to be far from over. The movement originally was a step of consolidation in order to evoke the political consciousness of Muslims, now began to be infiltrated by other groups with particular interests. These interest groups considered to sharpen the conflict and cause the political noise never ended across this country. This article try to expose how the social-political issues played massif and structured in virtual spaces by interest groups in order to form the force and gained the power of politics. And how the relationship between religion, state, and people are pitted in order that the collective identity look sharper. So no wonder that the people of Indonesia now seems to have split in two major axis, Religious versus Nationalist.Sembilan belas bulan telah berlalu, namun aksi dari gerakan sosial politik religius yang lahir pasca kasus penistaan agama pada Pilkada DKI Jakarta ternyata belumlah usai. Gerakan yang semula merupakan sebuah langkah konsolidasi guna membangkitkan kesadaran politik umat islam, kini mulai ditunggangi oleh kelompok lain dengan kepentingan tertentu. Kelompok kepentingan inilah yang ditengarai memperkeruh konflik dan menyebabkan kegaduhan politik tak kunjung usai di seantero negeri. Artikel ini mencoba memaparkan bagaimana isu-isu sosial politik kemudian dimainkan secara massif dan terstruktur dalam ruang-ruang virtual oleh kelompok kepentingan guna membentuk kekuatan politik dan demi meraih kekuasaan. Serta bagaimana relasi antara agama, rakyat, dan negara dibenturkan agar identitas kolektif terlihat lebih tajam. Maka tak heran jika kini rakyat Indonesia seolah telah terpropaganda dan terbelah dalam dua poros besar, Agamis dan Nasionalis.


2000 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
Susan R. Henderson

These two books concern major chapters in the history of mass housing: Amsterdam in the first two decades of the century and “Red Vienna.” Both programs were models of state welfare reform, but the political contexts are totally at odds: Amsterdam, with its settlement initiatives achieved through a corporatist compromise among moderate parties, and Vienna, where the Social Democrats attempted literally to build socialism in the midst of “a highly charged, often violent political conflict between left and right” (Blau, 13).


2021 ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
Ella G. Zadorozhnyuk ◽  

In 1998, the Czech Republic underwent a radical shift from the confrontational/conflicted political style of the first half of the 1990s to a pragmatic/consensual style. The leaders of the two largest political parties - the center-left Czech Social Democratic Party and the center-right Civic Democratic Party - signed the Opposition Treaty. From that point, it is possible to describe a new political mechanism that reformed the framework of cooperation between the Social Democrats and the Civil Democrats. These techniques of negotiation appeared again, and in a modified version, after another turning point in Czech political history, when the Action movement of disaffected citizens focusing on pragmatic solutions, made a compromise agreement with the CPCzM in 2011. This style of political decision-making can also be given a more expansive interpretation: it can be seen as a specific feature of the political history of a state located in the heart of Europe, economically prosperous and politically extremely turbulent.


2021 ◽  
pp. 25-43
Author(s):  
Michael A. Wilkinson

<Online Only>This chapter examines the interwar breakdown of liberal democracy in the Weimar Republic. Hermann Heller used the term authoritarian liberalism to capture the conjunction of political authoritarianism and economic liberalism ruling late Weimar. This regime attempted to depoliticize conflict, specifically in the economic sector, which had been threatening the interests of capital. It was ‘tolerated’ by the social democrats, who gradually abandoned democratic projects over the course of the 1920s, leaving behind not only radical options such as democratization of the economy, but also the parliamentary institutions of the Weimar Republic. The chapter concludes by examining how the seizure of power by the Nazi party, although marking a break, in the sense of heralding a regime based on mass mobilization, national redemption, and a cult of violence, continued the trajectory of depoliticization, signalling the ‘end of the political’.</Online Only>


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