scholarly journals Democracy’s Conceptual Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-117
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
Political Economic

The language we use for democracy matters, the struggles over how it is defined are real, the outcomes are consequential. This is what a conceptual politics approach emphasizes, pointing to the vital role played by contestation in determining which meanings prevail and which are marginalized. Among all the meanings of democracy that exist, it is liberal democracy that stands at the center, it has effectively won conceptual and political battles resulting in its current primacy. In this sense, liberalism is much more deeply baked into contemporary discussions about democracy than some might be comfortable admitting. This is not without cause, as liberal democracy has achieved, and continues to unevenly provide, political, economic, and social goods. In the rush to dig up alternatives, it is important not to lose sight of how and why this liberal conception of democracy has come to dominate and the ways it conditions democratic possibilities.

Trust in a Polarized Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Vallier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Downward Spiral

Americans today don’t trust each other and their institutions as much as they used to. The collapse of social and political trust arguably has fueled our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. But is the decline in trust inevitable? Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in war-like politics, institutional decay, and possibly even civil war? This book argues that American political and economic institutions are capable of creating and maintaining trust, even through polarized times. Combining philosophical arguments and empirical data, the author shows that liberal democracy, markets, and social welfare programs all play a vital role in producing social and political trust. Even more, these institutions can promote trust justly, by recognizing and respecting our basic human rights.

From Consensus to a Crisis of Confidence

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Waterhouse
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter outlines the political, economic, and cultural changes that combined to enflame business's “crisis of confidence” and incite its political mobilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It suggests that this experience marked a departure from the early postwar years often described as one of “liberal consensus.” Traditionally, the liberal consensus framework argued that the intense class-oriented battles between labor and business of the Progressive and New Deal periods cooled down after the war, when Cold War imperatives prompted both sides to unite around ideals of liberal democracy and the promise of mass consumption. However, recent scholarship has convincingly demonstrated that many prominent business leaders never accepted New Deal-style liberalism and in fact campaigned actively and vehemently for its rollback from the 1930s onward.

The Urbanization of Capital and the Production of Capitalist Natures

2018 ◽  
pp. 538-556
Author(s):  
Erik Swyngedouw
Keyword(s):  
Class Struggle ◽  
Creative Destruction ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Urbanization Process ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Political Economic

In the corpus of Marxist thought as well as in mainstream socialist strategies and politics, the theoretical and politically strategic position and role of space, nature, and the urbanization process in the expanded production and reproduction of capitalism, and in the transformation to socialism, remains—with a few notable exceptions—largely marginal and residual. Nonetheless, cities are hotbeds of anti-capitalist struggles and socio-ecological conflict, offer experimental spaces for emancipatory socio-ecological transformation and action, and remain pivotal for the organization and management of the creative destruction that animates a continuously revolutionizing capital circulation process. This chapter explores how emancipatory-egalitarian political movements, in conjunction with urban political-economic and political-ecological transformation, demonstrate the vital role of space, urbanization, and socio-ecological processes both in sustaining the expanded reproduction of capitalism and in choreographing the dynamics and configuration of class struggle.

Theorizing Privacy in a Liberal Democracy: Canadian Jurisprudence, Anti-Terrorism, and Social Memory After 9/11

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 323-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Steeves
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The State ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
State Surveillance

Abstract The creation of new search powers in the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act post-9/11 to make citizens more transparent to state surveillance was less a new phenomenon than an extension of preexisting tendencies to make citizens transparent to the state, so the risks they pose can be efficiently managed. However, 9/11 brought about a shift in the ways in which the Supreme Court of Canada talked about terrorism; terrorism was no longer placed on a continuum of criminal activity but was elevated to a threat to Canadian values as a whole. I argue that, paradoxically, this shift reconnected the Court to earlier discourses about privacy as an essential element of democratic governance and reinvigorated narratives around the importance of the public-private boundary to democratic relationships by situating privacy within narratives informed by social memory. From this perspective, privacy can be conceptualized as a status claim: as citizens, we are entitled to privacy because privacy is the boundary that creates right relationships between citizens and between citizens and the state. This avoids pitting privacy as an individual right against societal interests in transparency because it more fully actualizes Priscilla Regan’s call to theorize the value of privacy as a public good central to liberal democratic governance. This conception also reconnects Alan Westin’s original understanding of privacy as an element of liberal democracy to the sociological research he drew on, enriching the liberal conception of privacy by locating it in the intersubjective communication of cultural actors living in community.

Cultural Authenticity and Liberal Democracy: A Reply to Colin Tyler

Politics ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Seglow
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Cultural Authenticity ◽  
Cultural Understanding ◽  
Liberal Conception

This paper takes issue with Colin Tyler's critique of Bhikhu Parekh's work on liberalism and cultural pluralism in his ‘The Implications of Parekh's Cultural Pluralism’, Politics 16(3). I argue that Tyler subscribes to an overly monolithic view of cultural identity, that democracy can be a procedural or practical ideal not a cultural understanding, and that in any case the existence of deep-seated cultural pluralism is a good reason for rethinking democratic values and endorsing a republican, rather than liberal, conception of democracy.

scholarly journals Kontradiksi Demokrasi Liberal dan “Akhir Sejarah” Yang Tertunda

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-104
Author(s):  
Eva Novi Karina
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Political Economic

Due to historical developments and the works of theorists such as Francis Fukuyama, predominant political-economic literature has claimed that the combination of a “free market economy” and “liberal democracy built on equal rights” results in the most developed form of human society. With economic and political liberalism, societies of Western Europe and North America “at the vanguard of civilization” considered have reached the endpoint of humankind’s ideological evolution hence Western liberal democracy has been perceived as the final form of human government. However, the current rising wave of right-wing populism along with the exercise of protectionist economic measures in the most developed democratic countries has shown that democracy has begun to malfunction. Depart from this point, this article aims to re-examine the relationship between free market and democracy, and analyses the real inequalities manifested in income and the ownership of the means of production, and the inequalities within capitals, and between capital and wage labor. It concludes that the logic of market mechanisms poses a threat to democracy, while the extension of democracy would inevitably limit the freedom of the market and curb capital accumulation.

scholarly journals The Portuguese Royal Treasury: management, taxation and accounts control in the Johannine period (from 1814 to 1820)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Claudio Nascimento Pedroso ◽  
José Paulo Cosenza ◽  
Alberto Donoso-Anes
Keyword(s):  
National Archive ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Treasury Management ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Economic

In November 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte's troops were about to invade Portugal. To escape, the Queen of Portugal, Maria I, her son, future King Juan VI, Prince Regent at the time, as well as civilians and military men, had to embark and move to Brazil urgently. The transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil transformed the then colony of Portugal into the seat of the Portuguese monarchy, giving the country a significant role in the economic, social, and political issues of the Portuguese Empire, between 1808 and 1821. Among the changes made by the Portuguese Crown in Brazil in the process of reorganization of the State apparatus, we highlight the creation of the Royal Treasury, similar to the one existing in Lisbon since 1761, which was responsible for the collection and accounting entries of the income generated throughout the Portuguese domain. This paper examines the balance sheets of the ledger book of the 2nd Royal Treasury General Accountancy from 1814 to 1820, based on historical and documentary research conducted in the collections of the Brazilian National Archive. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quality of the accounting information recorded in the annual balance sheets, comparing it across different periods and determining its functionality as a tax control tool. The paper contributes to the literature with information on this special historical period in which Rio de Janeiro provisionally became the capital of the Portuguese Kingdom, maintaining a vital role in the political, economic, and social context of the time. The results of the study enable us to infer the economic conception of fiscal control that the Royal Treasury exercised in its administrative and accounting organization, showing the role played by accounting in the management of the Portuguese Royal House, given that accounting records reveal the ascendancy of the environment over accounting and the influence of accounting on the environment.

Russia and Belarus: Economic Linkage in a Patron-Client Relationship

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Randall Newnham
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Russian Market ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Near Abroad ◽  
Client Relations

Abstract President Putin has embarked on a program of restoring Russia to world-power status. A key facet of his effort has been to establish a sphere of influence in the ‘Near Abroad,’ the countries of the former Soviet Union. While the world has focused on the dramatic events in Ukraine since 2013, much less attention has been paid to the vital role of Belarus in Putin’s plans. Belarus has long had closer relations with Russia than any other former Soviet state, dating back to the Yeltsin years. This paper will show that Russia has devoted considerable resources to Belarus, showering the country with a variety of economic inducements, including access to the Russian market, subsidized oil and gas, and outright grants and loans. In return, Belarus has tightened its political, economic, and military ties to Moscow. Yet, surprisingly, Belarus also has some bargaining power in this relationship. Its quixotic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is well aware of his importance to the Kremlin, and uses it to gain even greater economic rewards – thus cementing his own power. This case thus can make an valuable contribution to extending the literature on patron-client relations in International Relations, showing that a client can stand up to its patron in certain circumstances.

The limits of the law and the mutability of the judicial system

2016 ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
DAN CLAUDIU DĂNIȘOR
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Structural Modification ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Structural Modifications ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Structural Conflict

In a liberal democracy, the sphere of law cannot be unlimited. The first category of its limits results from the necessity to temper the mutability of the legal system. Firstly, the law must not be perishable. The passage of time should not, in itself, affect the legal system. Thus, the law must limit the desire for change only for the sake of change and the desire to turn regulations into a performance. The limitation of such tendencies is not legally effective under any circumstances, meaning that the choice of regulatory methods must take into account formal principles and the context of their application as well. Secondly, law cannot be receptive to all changes. It must shift only under certain circumstances, commensurate with the magnitude of social changes. Any social conflict, change of ideological orientation, or political, economic or structural modification should not determine modifications with respect to the legal order. Thirdly, the mutability of the legal system may be determined by systemic dysfunctions. However, any structural conflict within the legal order should not bring about systemic changes. Basically, only certain dysfunctions can be classified as systemic, and the reaction towards them should be limited to drawing up structural modifications.

scholarly journals Security Challenges of Small States

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhimnath Baral
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Small States ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Political Economic

The concept of Security has a vital role in the study of international relations. This concept is old as human civilization. It has different meaning in different phases of history. However, there have been sea changes in the interpretation of security matters. The traditional state-centric security has transferred into modern human centric approach. But the small states are always threatened by it in different forms and nature. As a precondition for sustainable political, economic and social development, small states are always tortured by several internal and external factors. So, this article overviews about the various security challenges faced by small states.Journal of Political Science. Vol. 17, 2017, Page: 1-17 

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