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The Modernity of Political Representation
Its Innovative Thrust and Transnational Semantic Transfers during the Sattelzeit (Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries)
Samuel Hayat and José María Rosales
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Introduction
- Pages:
- 69–75 (7 total)
Neoliberalism, Hedonism and the Dying Public
Reclaiming Political Agency through the Exercise of Courage
Grant M. Sharratt and Erik Wisniewski
Abstract
While the pursuit of hedonism is legitimated by neoliberal governmentality, its disciplining and isolating forces prevent individuals from being fulfilled by their pursuit of pleasure. Concomitantly, this hedonism (pursuing pleasure to avoid pain) causes individuals to withdraw from public political life. In this article we argue that, instead of attempting to pursue pleasure through the experience of material comfort, individuals ought to orient themselves towards membership in substantive political associations. Further, we argue that it is through such membership that one can attain genuine fulfilment, while simultaneously reclaiming agency, both on individual and collective terms. Though individuals must be willing to take on the risk of pain, their membership in substantive political associations provides genuine fulfilment, while also allowing for the construction of new worlds through political action.
Populism
The Timeline of a Concept
Juan Francisco Fuentes
Abstract
The concept of populism has generated endless controversy marked by both the contrasting political feelings it conveys and a particular problem of definition. This article—based on political speeches, academic literature, and relevant online sources, such as Google Ngram Viewer, catalogs of great libraries, and digital archives of newspapers—adopts a pragmatic approach to the concept throughout its history, from the moment when the noun appeared in North American political life in the late nineteenth century until the most recent “populist moment” in response to the economic crisis that started in 2008. The study of its changing meanings shows, however, some elements of continuity that make sense of what Margaret Canovan defined as “a notoriously vague term.”
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 47–68 (22 total)
Representative Government in the Dutch Provinces
The Controversy over the Stadtholderate (1705–1707) and Simon van Slingelandt
Bert Drejer
Abstract
This article reconsiders the way political representation was understood in the early modern Netherlands by focusing on the contemporary contribution of Simon van Slingelandt. His views of the representative nature of the government of the Dutch Republic were deeply polemical when he developed them, but went on to have a profound influence on the later literature and are notably sustained in modern histories of the subject. The best way to nuance the view of political representation our historiography has inherited from Van Slingelandt is by returning to the earlier views he set out to discredit. By examining both views, I thus hope to shed some new light on the representative nature of early modern Dutch government.
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 76–96 (21 total)
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 121–144 (24 total)
Book Roundtable
Discussion text: Chin, C. 2018. The Practice of Political Theory: Rorty and Continental Thought.
Lasse Thomassen, Joe Hoover, David Owen, Paul Patton, and Clayton Chin
Olusegun Steven Samuel and Ademola Kazeem Fayemi
Abstract
This article is a critique of Thaddeus Metz's modal relational approach to moral status in African ethics (AE). According to moral relationalism (MR), a being has moral status if it exhibits the capacity for communal relationship as either a subject or an object. While Metz defends a prima facie plausibility of MR as an African account of moral status, this article provides a fresh perspective to the debate on moral status in environmental and ethical discourse. It raises two objections against MR: (1) the capability criterion inherent in MR is not only exogenous to African thought but also undermines the viability of MR; and (2) MR cannot account for the standing of species populations. Both objections have severe implications for biodiversity conservation efforts in Africa and beyond.
Vittorio Bufacchi
Abstract
The principle of non-maleficence, primum non nocere, has deep roots in the history of moral philosophy, being endorsed by John Stuart Mill, W. D. Ross, H. L. A. Hart, Karl Popper and Bernard Gert. And yet, this principle is virtually absent from current debates on social justice. This article suggests that non-maleficence is more than a moral principle; it is also a principle of social justice. Part I looks at the origins of non-maleficence as a principle of ethics, and medical ethics in particular. Part II introduces the idea of non-maleficence as a principle of social justice. Parts III and IV define the principle of justice as non-maleficence in terms of its scope and coherence, while Part V argues that the motivation of not doing harm makes this principle an alternative to two well-established paradigms in the literature on social justice: justice as mutual advantage (David Gauthier) and justice as impartiality (Brian Barry).