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Citizens increasingly engage with political issues in new ways by addressing politicians via social media, campaigning at international forums, or boycotting corporate entities. These forms of engagement move beyond more regulated electoral politics and are rightly celebrated for the ways they increase representation and provide new channels of accountability. Yet, despite these virtues, political engagement beyond voting inevitably tends to entrench and amplify inequality in citizen influence on political decision-making. The tendency toward inequality undermines relational equality between citizens and muddies the channels of political accountability and responsibility. This article unpacks the ostensible tension and argues that it reveals to us another strength in views which hold the state to be citizens’ collective project and provides argumentative resources to motivate democracies to give due attention to ensuring that democratic participatory channels remain fit for purpose in an ever-changing society.

Race, Class and Power: Harold Wolpe and the Radical Critique of Apartheid, by Steven Friedman. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2015. ISBN 978-1-86914-286-5.

Jan Smuts and the Indian Question, by Vineet Thakur. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-86914-378-7.

Abstract

Political romanticism is one of the keys to accessing the intellectual debates of the Weimar Republic. This article tries to adopt a radically historicized approach centered on the concept of reception. Such an approach allows it to focus on the strategic nature of the different uses that were made of the romantic paradigm between 1918 and 1933. This article contends that one of the main features that romanticism offers in the German context is its interdiscursive quality that renders it able to transcend traditional political divisions like left/right and conservative/progressive. This idea is illustrated in this article with a series of examples covering the entire lifespan of the Republic and the entire political spectrum therein, which can be represented by such figures as Sigmund Rubinstein, Thomas Mann, Hans Freyer, Carl Schmitt, Karl Mannheim, Othmar Spann, Wilhelm von Schramm, and Paul Tillich.

Political realism claims that politics should be understood as politics and not as a derivative of any other field of human activity. While contemporary realists often argue for the autonomy of politics, this article suggests that only the primacy of politics can be the starting point of political realism. The aim of the article is to expose a conceptual deficiency, namely, the unclear difference between the autonomy and the primacy approach in contemporary realist theory by going back to Carl Schmitt’s contribution to political realism. It will be argued that Schmitt’s concept of the political foreshadowed the ambiguities of contemporary realist theory, exemplified by key authors such as Bernard Williams, Raymond Geuss and Mark Philp.

In La Barrière et le Niveau (1925), the French philosopher Edmond Goblot applied a logic of quality to the social world. The major thesis which Goblot defended at that time was: having no titles or property, the bourgeois class constructed itself superficially through value judgements, building upon commonly shared appreciations, however intrinsically contradictory they may be. If we accept this logical reading found in La Barrière et le Niveau, then two different types of paralogism, useful for sociological theory, merit consideration: paralogisms of criteria and paralogisms of judgement. When interpreted in this way, Goblot’s work presents a threefold theoretical interest: it associates logic and sociology in an original way; it illustrates the heuristic relevance of a social ontology approach, and it provides a grid of sociocultural analysis of the social classes which is still relevant today.

This article examines Nnamdi Azikiwe’s idea of mental emancipation as the intellectual foundation for his political philosophy. Mental emancipation involves re-educating Africans to adopt scientific, critical, analytic, and logical modes of thinking. Azikiwe argues that development must involve changing Africans’ intellectual attitudes and educational system. He argues that Western education, through perpetuating negative stereotypes and engendering ‘colonial mentality’, has neither fostered critical and scientific thinking, nor enabled Africans to apply their knowledge for development. Mental emancipation would enable Africans to develop self-confidence, and the critical examination of superstitious beliefs that have hindered Africa’s development. I show that Azikiwe’s ideas have been recaptured by African philosophers like Bodunrin and Wiredu, regarding their critique of aspects of African tradition and prescription for how African philosophy can contribute to development.

Abstract

This article offers a history of pluralism as a term in scholarly discourse. It presents the existing research on the question and offers a contribution on the basis of an inclusive approach that is not limited to one discipline (philosophy or political science) or to one linguistic area. In particular, it references the rich German debate and the important French intellectual developments. Moreover, it considers not only the proponents but also the adversaries of pluralism. There are two recurring elements in the debates on political pluralism. One is the existence, even among the critics of pluralism, of a recognition of plurality at some level. The other is the advocacy, even by authors who strongly emphasize conflict and dissent, of some necessary unity.

Abstract

This article examines how politicians have applied evaluative-descriptive terms as rhetorical levers to a pivotal basic concept, illustrating the broader rhetorical strategy of dissociation identified by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. It focuses on political debates around capitalism that took place in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century British politics, including the period following the financial crisis of 2008. Drawing on data from the Enhanced Hansard Corpus and Hansard Online, together with other contemporary texts, it combines quantitative and qualitative analyses using a corpus-based approach to identify salient items that are then placed in their discursive and sociopolitical contexts. More generally, the article seeks to bridge part of the gap between Koselleckian Begriffsge-schichte and Quentin Skinner’s rhetorical approach by applying what is in effect a historical-pragmatic approach to the history of political concepts.