Abstract
69.7220 ADAIR-TOTEFF, Christopher —
This essay traces the history of the concept of ideology from its beginnings in the early 19th c. to the beginnings of the 21st but pays close attention to those of Karl Mannheim, Edward Shils, and Raymond Aron. Not only are these three scholars experts on the concept of ideology, they worked with one another to help develop and refine its meaning and its application. With this examination of their discussions, we gain a more precise understanding of what an ideology is and a fuller sense of how it functions. [R]
69.7221 ALBERT, Craig Douglas —
This paper analyzes Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in a new light. When viewed through Leo Strauss’s conception of the theologico-political problem, a novel reading of Tocqueville is presented. This interpretation argues that one of Democracy’s major themes concerns reason versus revelation. Within such a reading, it contends that Tocqueville’s seminal contribution to the history of political philosophy contained within it his reluctant announcement that religion may not be able to cure the social ills liberal democracy brings with it. Mainly, this is because Tocqueville fears democracy will contribute to the decline of religion itself. Tocqueville subtlety reveals his concerns over religion’s possible inadequacy, offers explanations thereof, and postulates another concept as a mitigating tool that has similar moderating effects on democratic defects: self-interest well understood. [R]
69.7222 ARLEN, Gordon —
This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtue. While Aristotle’s thought provides great resources for diagnosing oligarchic threats, it proves less useful as a guide to democratic institutional design. Aristotle raises a deep-seated objection to democratic forms of ‘rule by the poor.’ A successful response to oligarchy must move beyond Aristotle’s objection and affirm the demos’ tripartite status as many, free, and poor. [R, abr.]
69.7223 BALLARINI, Adriano —
In totalitarianism, history is never that of an individual. The man as “subject”, constructed during the Modern Age, is substituted by the man as “mass”. The man finds himself and feels gratified if his own world secures his role of functionary. To get access to the historical phenomenon of totalitarianism we need an understanding of reality within which the man may feel fulfilled in a condition of existence without any freedom or singularity. The hypothesis of this essay is that Nietzsche’s European nihilism, and the transvaluation of values on which it rests, can be considered a gateway to such understanding of reality. [R]
69.7224 BOYD, Nathaniel J. —
Hegel’s relation (or non-relation) to Hobbes has been explored in the critical literature, but mainly in theoretical terms. I argue that the historical reception of Hobbes in Germany and the necessary transformation of his thinking in the context of the Holy Roman Empire shaped Hegel’s early political thinking, as well as his institutional form of the state. Thus this article rekindles the debate on Hegel’s relation to Hobbes by focusing on the constitutional context in Germany and shows how the German tradition of political theory, with its emphasis on the rights of religion and conscience, was central to Hegel’s development. [R]
69.7225 CIARAMELLI, Fabio —
Sophocles’ Antigone can be taken as a good starting point in order to investigate, within the Greek classical world, on the absence of mediation between the generality of legislation, on the one side, and the concrete case in its particularity, on the other. The lack of a solution in the tragic conflict to shows, as it is, the very limit characteristic of the social thought underlying the Greek polis. This one is in fact as entrapped in the sole perspective of the nomos. The general and abstract character of the latter does not admit in effect any procedure able to control its execution in the concrete realm of daily life. [R, abr.]
69.7226 DEROUS, Marjolein ; DE ROECK, Frederik —
This paper demonstrates the merits of governmentality as a tool for studying EU external relations. Existing research tends to fall into the trap of reifying the dichotomy between realist and ideational conceptions of EU external action. Governmentality can serve as a hybrid between these two strands of research, incorporating the preoccupancy with power of the former with the ethical considerations of the latter. It can open up our understanding of power operating in and through the EU’s external relations, by looking at the discursive constructions rendering issues governable and the micro-political practices that follow from it. We provide an overview of existing applications of governmentality in EU external relations and construct a framework allowing researchers to use governmentality to its full analytical potential. [R]
69.7227 HOWELL, Alison ; RICHTER-MONTPETIT, Melanie —
This article argues that while Foucauldian security studies (FSS) scholarship on the biopolitics of security and liberal war has not ignored racism, these works largely replicate Foucault’s whitewashing of the raciality and coloniality of modern power and violence. Drawing on Black, indigenous, postcolonial and decolonial studies, we show how Foucault’s genealogy of biopower rests on an unspecified concept of the “human,” failing to account for how notions of “human” were constituted through the savage and slave other, how enslaved people were rendered into things, and how punitive, sovereign violence persists as a (settler) colonial technique of gratuitous, not merely instrumental, violence. FSS exacerbates these problems. [R, abr.]
69.7228 HUNT, Bruce A., Jr. ; ROSS, Robert —
Scholars often see the political thought of the American founding through the lens of modern liberal ideas, such as property rights, religious toleration and the right to revolution. These ideas trace back to John Locke, whose thought continues to structure American political discourse in large degree. This article argues that the Lockean/modern liberal lens in use misrepresents the founding. We turn to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams to show a more robust discourse, both politically and philosophically, that takes in traditional Western views, which are present in Locke and trace back to Plato, on statesmanship, censorship and civil religion. [R]
69.7229 INAMURA, Kazutaka —
This article examines Aristotle’s ideas of scientific classification in his typology of constitutions. In particular, it considers how his theory of biological classification is used in the Politics and how his notion of scientific definition plays a role in developing his political theory. A key idea behind his typology is that different combinations of parts determine different characteristics of their wholes. Within this framework, Aristotle uses a Platonic idea that the influential part of a state determines the nature of a constitution. The article thus illuminates Aristotle’s scientific background for considering how to arrange constitutional elements for good governance. [R]
69.7230 KAPUST, Daniel J. —
This paper explores Hobbes’s relationship to Lucretius. Building on scholarship dealing with Hobbes’s knowledge and use of Lucretius, I show that in Leviathan, Hobbes decisively rejected central features of Lucretius’ argument. Hobbes’s rejection of these features, in turn, highlights the distinctiveness of key features of his argument about the passions and language, the distinctively authoritarian version of his contract theory, and his ultimate rejection of Lucretius’ Epicurean project. [R]
69.7231 KASSIMERIS, George —
2019 marks 100 years since the birth of Andreas Papandreou, Greece’s first socialist prime minister and an extraordinary figure of 20th c. European politics. Looking back, the central purpose of this article is to answer pivotal questions about Papandreou and his career. What have been the major turning points in his life? What were his main beliefs? What motivated him and his politics? What were his political priorities and methods? What did he want to achieve as prime minister? Why did he become so involved in foreign policy issues? What were his assets as prime minister? Did they outweigh his shortcomings as a politician and leader? Did power change him and how? What will be Papandreou’s place in history? [R]
69.7232 L’ARRIVEE, Robert —
Scholarship on al-Farabi interprets his theoretical analysis of politics apart from its historical context, which results in a failure to understand how his political philosophy is useful for understanding Islamic politics. This paper brings al-Farabi’s theory of the regimes into dialogue with Islamic political history. Al-Farabi modifies the political thought of Plato and Aristotle to illuminate the rise and decline of the caliphate according to Islamic principles. For al-Farabi, the mechanism of the decline of the caliphate rests in excessive material desire satisfaction and the misuse of wealth for the aggrandizement of political elites. [R]
69.7233 LESCH, Charles H. T. —
Secularization, according to Max Weber’s classic theory, shatters social cohesion. But if this is so, what are the prospects for democratic solidarity in a secular age? I examine the response given by one of democracy’s leading intellectual architects, Jürgen Habermas. Whereas Weber thought that rational modernity enfeebles solidarity, Habermas believes that rational discourse itself inherits religion’s moral-aesthetic power, a process that he calls the “linguistification of the sacred.” Habermas’s stress on language, I argue, is partly justified. Yet as I show by tracing linguistification’s roots to Émile Durkheim’s sociology of religion and Walter Benjamin’s theory of language, Habermas’s program for solidarity falls short in one crucial respect. [R, abr.]
69.7234 LEVI, Margaret ; WEINGAST, Barry R. —
Douglass C. North, co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1993, became a major leader in historical and comparative political science and in the study of institutions more generally. His work proved particularly relevant for those interested in questions of state-building, state variation, development, and long-term secular change. [R]
69.7235 MILLER, Chris —
This article examines Soviet thinking about authoritarian modernization through the life and thought of Georgii Mirskii, a noted expert on Arab politics. Mirskii was a regular adviser and speechwriter for the Soviet Central Committee, and was also followed by the KGB for his criticism of Stalin. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mirskii looked to the example of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser to develop a theory of militaryled modernization. This article examines how Mirskii’s faith in the ability of Third World militaries to function as modernizing forces changed over time. The course of military politics in the Third World during the 1970s and 1980s, when military coups proliferated, bringing to power violent and self-interested regimes, disabused Mirskii of any faith in military modernization. [R, abr.]
69.7236 MITTIGA, Ross —
Central to W.E.B. Du Bois’s political theory is a conception of “world” remarkably similar to that put forward, years later, by Martin Heidegger. This point is more methodological than historical: I claim that approaching Du Bois’s work as a source, rather than as a product, of concepts that resonated with subsequent thinkers allows us to better appreciate the novelty and vision of his political theory. Exploring this resonance, I argue, helps to refine the notions of world and founding present in each theorist’s work. Yet, it is only by remaining attentive to their differences that we can understand how Du Bois and Heidegger could endorse such dramatically opposed political programs despite similar theoretical starting points. [R]
69.7237 MULIERI, Alessandro —
This article provides new and overlooked textual evidence that re-opens the question of the Averroist foundations of Marsilius of Padua’s political thought. The analysis first shows that in Marsilius’ The Defender of Peace, we find traces of a key Averroist idea that was also present in several Parisian Averroist magistri of the 13th and 14th c.: that philosophy is the highest form of human perfection. Second, it is shown that there are parallels between Marsilius’ ideas and some political positions that are present in the work of Marsilius’ Averroist friend John of Jandun. In an attempt to make sense of the political implications of Marsilius’ Averroist ideas, the article also claims that these ideas highlight a substantial departure of Marsilius’ political theory from some key assumptions of classical republicanism. [R, abr.]
69.7238 RAMET, Sabrina P. —
In the wake of the Protestant Reformation and the division of Western Christianity into rival religious camps, France descended into religious civil war in the years 1562-1598. The question then was how to respond to it. Writing after Spinoza’s championing of freedom of religious thought but before Hobbes’ advocacy of a strong sovereign who would dictate the prayers and forms of religious worship for the nation as a method of avoiding religious conflict, Bodin argued for religious toleration, indeed for a degree of religious toleration that was radical in its day. [R]
69.7239 RUACAN, Ipek Zeynep —
This article maintains that the treatment of the Ottoman/Turk in the English School of IR, as in broader Western scholarship, is Eurocentric and highlights less frequently utilized concepts to restructure our thinking on the Ottomans. In Eurocentric historical narratives, the Ottomans are represented as an abnormal entity or as the very opposite of Europeanness. This peculiar representation anachronistically impacts upon EU-Turkey relations today as the Europeans conflate the dissolved Ottoman Empire with contemporary Turkey. I turn to Martin Wight’s concepts to recast the Ottomans as a potential European superpower rather than as an abnormality in European life and then to Herbert Butterfield’s “academic history” as one way of dissociating the Ottoman past and the Turkish present. Both moves can help reimagine the Ottoman/Turk on more positive and balanced terms. [R]
69.7240 RUNCIMAN, David —
This collection seeks to ground political theory in the study of institutions, particularly the constitutional relationship between different branches of government. It makes the case that ‘constitutionalism’ has become a thin doctrine of political restraint. Waldron wants to identify a fuller conceptual understanding of how the functions of government can be empowered and articulated. In doing so, he sets out a position that is distinct from both moralism and realism in contemporary political theory. I explore how well the later distinction holds up: how successfully does Waldron’s approach marry realist concerns with the rigour of analytical political theory? I also discuss the role it leaves for the history of political thought and whether it can deal with the populist strain in contemporary politics. [R]
69.7241 SELINGER, William —
For nearly half a century John Stuart Mill was a major critic of the forms of electoral corruption prevalent in Victorian England. Yet this political commitment has been largely overlooked by scholars. This article offers the first synoptic account of Mill’s writings against corruption. It argues that Mill’s opposition to corruption was not accidental or temperamental, but sprung from fundamental principles of his political thought. It also shows that Mill’s opposition to electoral corruption put him at odds with other leading liberal thinkers of his era, who thought that the existing ways in which wealth influenced elections had positive effects — or at the very least that they did not impede a healthy electoral contest from taking place. [R, abr.]
69.7242 SPARLING, Robert —
In contemporary debates over blocked exchanges, there is a tendency to become fixated on the essentially tradeable or untradeable nature of given goods or practices without entering into the wider constitutional questions raised by the issue of where and when market logic should obtain. This article offers some perspective on contemporary commodification debates by examining an eighteenth-century conversation over ethical and legal limitations on market activity. In particular, it examines Montesquieu’s contribution to debates about the venality of office and the laws prohibiting noble participation in commerce. Montesquieu’s thought on the limits of commerce in a monarchy can inform contemporary debates on the ethical and political significance of commodification. This article contributes to non-ideal political theory by suggesting that commodification debates need to go beyond abstract ethical reflections on markets and become more attuned to the particular constitutional contexts of any given blocked-exchange debate. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 69.7482]
69.7243 STAHL, Rune Møller —
The article offers a critique of the prevailing understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism and classic nineteenth-century liberalism in contemporary international political economy (IPE) and offers a redefinition inspired by Polanyi and Gramsci. Within critical IPE studies, a consensus has emerged that neoliberalism cannot be reduced to a simple attempt to roll back the economy and let loose free-market forces. However, this insight relies on contrasting neoliberalism with a classic liberalism, that is, a simple attempt to implement just this naïve laissezfaire ideology. In contrast, this article argues that nineteenth-century liberalism is also characterised by an active use of state and legislative power. Through a historical study of two cases from nineteenth-century Britain, Poor Law reform and the Gold Standard, the paper will argue that state action played a central role even during the heyday of laissez-faire liberalism. [R, abr.]
69.7244 VEROVŠEK, Peter J. —
J. Habermas has sought to set critical theory on firm normative foundations by drawing on thinkers outside the canon of Western Marxism. My basic thesis is that H. Arendt is a crucial but underappreciated resource for his intellectual development. I focus on Arendt’s importance for Habermas’s work on the public sphere in the 1960s and the social theory he developed in the 1970s and ‘80s, despite his reluctance to cite her writings in his early career. I argue that rereading Habermas’s critical theory through Arendt’s political thought helps to clarify the importance of politics within his work, thus countering accusations that he is an abstract thinker of “high liberalism” who is uninterested in “real politics.” A greater appreciation of Arendt’s work as a condition of possibility for Habermas’s philosophy demonstrates the importance of reading their work together as part of a common project. [R] [See Abstr. 69.7482]